ediately to postage stamps.

"Stamped out?" said Edward Henry, with the air of omniscience that
a father is bound to assume. "Postage stamps are stamped out--by a
machine--you see."

Robert's scorn of this explanation was manifest.

"Well," Edward Henry, piqued, made another attempt, "you stamp a fire
out with your feet." And he stamped illustratively on the floor. After
all, the child was only eight.

"I knew all that before," said Robert, coldly. "You don't understand."

"What makes you ask, dear? Let us show father your leg." Nellie's
voice was soothing.

"Yes," Robert murmured, staring reflectively at the ceiling. "That's
it. It says in the _Encyclopaedia_ that hydrophobia is stamped out in
this country--by Mr.. Long's muzzling order. Who is Mr.. Long?"

A second bomb had fallen on exactly the same spot as the first, and
the two exploded simultaneously. And the explosion was none the
less terrible because it was silent and invisible. The tidy domestic
chamber was strewn in a moment with an awful mass of wounded
susceptibilities. Beyond the screen the _nick-nick_ of grandmother's
steel needles stopped and started again. It was characteristic of her
temperament that she should recover before the younger generations
could recover. Edward Henry, as befitted his sex, regained his nerve a
little earlier than Nellie.

"I told you never to touch my _Encyclopaedia_," said he, sternly.
Robert had twice been caught on his stomach on the floor with a vast
volume open under his chin, and his studies had been traced by vile
thumb-marks.

"I know," said Robert.

Whenever anybody gave that child a piece of unsolicited information he
almost invariably replied, "I know."

"But hydrophobia!" cried Nellie. "How did you know about hydrophobia?"

"We had it in spellings last week," Robert explained.

"The deuce you did!" muttered Edward Henry.

The one bright facet of the many-sided and gloomy crisis was the very
obvious truth that Robert was the most extraordinary child that ever
lived.

"But when on earth did you get at the _Encyclopaedia_, Robert?" his
mother exclaimed, completely at a loss.

"It was before you came in from Hillport," the wondrous infant
answered. "After my leg had stopped hurting me a bit."

"But when I came in nurse said it had only just happened!"

"Shows how much _she_ knew!" said Robert, with contempt.

"Does your leg hurt you now?" Edward Henry inquired.

"A bit. That's why I can't go t