" he suggested.

"That I don't know," said Nellie. "But I know we must get rid of that
dog."

"Serious?"

"Of course we must," Nellie insisted, with an inadvertent heat, which
she immediately cooled.

"I mean the bite."

"Well--it's a bite right enough."

"And you're thinking of hydrophobia, death amid horrible agony, and so
on."

"No, I'm not," she said stoutly, trying to smile.

But he knew she was. And he knew also that the bite was a trifle. If
it had been a good bite she would have made it enormous; she would
have hinted that the dog had left a chasm in the boy's flesh.

"Yes, you are," he continued to twit her, encouraged by her attempt at
a smile.

However, the smile expired.

"I suppose you won't deny that Carlo's teeth may have been dirty? He's
always nosing in some filth or other," she said challengingly, in a
measured tone of sagacity. "And there may be blood-poisoning."

"Blood fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Edward Henry.

Such a nonsensical and infantile rejoinder deserved no answer, and
it received none. Shortly afterwards Maud entered and whispered that
Nellie was wanted upstairs. As soon as his wife had gone Edward Henry
rang the bell.

"Maud," he said, "bring me the _Signal_ out of my left-hand overcoat
pocket."

And he defiantly finished his meal at leisure, with the news of the
day propped up against the flower-pot, which he had set before him
instead of the dish of ham.

III

Later, catching through the open door fragments of a conversation on
the stairs which indicated that his mother was at last coming down for
tea, he sped like a threatened delinquent into the drawing-room. He
had no wish to encounter his mother, though that woman usually said
little.

The drawing-room, after the bathroom, was Edward Henry's favourite
district in the home. Since he could not spend the whole of his time
in the bathroom--and he could not!--he wisely gave a special care to
the drawing-room, and he loved it as one always loves that upon which
one has bestowed benefits. He was proud of the drawing-room, and he
had the right to be. The principal object in it, at night, was the
electric chandelier, which would have been adequate for a lighthouse.
Edward Henry's eyes were not what they used to be; and the minor
advertisements in the _Signal_--which constituted his sole evening
perusals--often lacked legibility. Edward Henry sincerely believed in
light and heat; he was almost the only person in t