ht with a certain surprise:
'I wonder what she does think of! I wonder!' He put his gloves and hat
down in the outer hall and went into the lavatory, to dip his face in
cool water and wash it with sweet-smelling soap--delicious revenge on
the unclean atmosphere in which he had been stewing so many hours. He
came out again into the hall dazed by soap and the mellowed light, and
a voice from half-way up the stairs said: "Daddy! Look!" His little
daughter was standing up there with one hand on the banisters. She
scrambled on to them and came sliding down, her frock up to her eyes,
and her holland knickers to her middle. Mr. Bosengate said mildly:

"Well, that's elegant!"

"Tea's in the summer-house. Mummy's waiting. Come on!"

With her hand in his, Mr. Bosengate went on, through the drawing-room,
long and cool, with sun-blinds down, through the billiard-room, high and
cool, through the conservatory, green and sweet-smelling, out on to the
terrace and the upper lawn. He had never felt such sheer exhilarated joy
in his home surroundings, so cool, glistening and green under the July
sun; and he said:

"Well, Kit, what have you all been doing?"

"I've fed my rabbits and Harry's; and we've been in the attic; Harry got
his leg through the skylight."

Mr. Bosengate drew in his breath with a hiss.

"It's all right, Daddy; we got it out again, it's only grazed the skin.
And we've been making swabs--I made seventeen, Mummy made thirty-three,
and then she went to the hospital. Did you put many men in prison?"

Mr. Bosengate cleared his throat. The question seemed to him untimely.

"Only two."

"What's it like in prison, Daddy?"

Mr. Bosengate, who had no more knowledge than his little daughter,
replied in an absent voice:

"Not very nice."

They were passing under a young oak tree, where the path wound round
to the rosery and summer-house. Something shot down and clawed Mr.
Bosengate's neck. His little daughter began to hop and suffocate with
laughter.

"Oh, Daddy! Aren't you caught! I led you on purpose!"

Looking up, Mr. Bosengate saw his small son lying along a low branch
above him--like the leopard he was declaring himself to be (for fear of
error), and thought blithely: 'What an active little chap it is!' "Let
me drop on your shoulders, Daddy--like they do on the deer."

"Oh, yes! Do be a deer, Daddy!"

Mr. Bosengate did not see being a deer; his hair had just been brushed.
But he entered the rosery buoyant