stle, as of escaping
steam,--long-drawn, ear piercing, unvarying in note.

"I only just want to see," protested Selina, struggling to uproot his
small body from the scrawl it guarded. But Harold clung limpet-like to
the table edge, and his shrill protest continued to deafen humanity and
to threaten even the serenities of Olympus. The time seemed come for a
demonstration in force. Personally I cared little what soul-outpourings
of Harold were pirated by Selina--she was pretty sure to get hold of
them sooner or later--and indeed I rather welcomed the diversion as
favourable to the undisturbed pursuit of Art. But the clannishness of
sex has its unwritten laws. Boys, as such, are sufficiently put upon,
maltreated, trodden under, as it is. Should they fail to hang together
in perilous times, what disasters, what ignominies, may not be looked
for? Possibly even an extinction of the tribe. I dropped my paint brush
and sailed shouting into the fray.

The result for a short space hung dubious. There is a period of life
when the difference of a year or two in age far outweighs the minor
advantage of sex. Then the gathers of Selina's frock came away with a
sound like the rattle of distant musketry; and this calamity it was,
rather than mere brute compulsion, that quelled her indomitable spirit.

The female tongue is mightier than the sword, as I soon had good reason
to know, when Selina, her riven garment held out at length, avenged her
discomfiture with the Greek-fire of personalities and abuse. Every black
incident in my short, but not stainless, career--every error, every
folly, every penalty ignobly suffered--were paraded before me as in a
magic-lantern show. The information, however, was not particularly new
to me, and the effect was staled by previous rehearsals. Besides,
a victory remains a victory, whatever the moral character of the
triumphant general.

Harold chuckled and crowed as he dropped from the table, revealing the
document over which so many gathers had sighed their short lives out.
"YOU can read it if you like," he said to me gratefully. "It's only a
Death-letter."

It had never been possible to say what Harold's particular amusement of
the hour might turn out to be. One thing only was certain, that it
would be something improbable, unguessable, not to be foretold. Who,
for instance, in search of relaxation, would ever dream of choosing the
drawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property? Yet this was