ld regime, the _Oriole's_ extinction was far less
painful to Herbert than his father supposed; and the latter wasted a
great deal of severity, insisting that the printing-press should be
returned that very night to Uncle Joseph. Herbert's heartiest
retrospective wish was that the ole printing-press had been returned to
Uncle Joseph long ago.

"If you can find him to give it to!" Aunt Harriet suggested. "Nobody
_knows_ where he goes when he gets the way he did this afternoon when we
were discussing it with him! I only hope he'll be back to-night!"

"He can't stay away forever," Aunt Fanny remarked. "That garage is
charging him five dollars an hour for the automobile he's in, and surely
even Joseph will decide there's a limit to wildness _some_ time!"

"I don't care when he comes back," Herbert's father declared grimly.
"Whenever he does he's got to take that printing-press back--and Herbert
will be let out of the house long enough to carry it over. His mother or
I will go with him."

Herbert bore much more than this. He had seated himself on the third
step of the stairway, and maintained as much dogged silence as he could.
Once, however, they got a yelp of anguish out of him. It was when Cousin
Virginia said: "Oh, Herbert, Herbert! How could you make up that
terrible falsehood about Mr. Crum? And, _think_ of it; right on the same
page with your cousin Florence's pure little poem!"

Herbert uttered sounds incoherent but loud, and expressive of a supreme
physical revulsion. The shocked audience readily understood that he
liked neither Cousin Virginia's chiding nor Cousin Florence's pure
little poem.

"Shame!" said his father.

Herbert controlled himself. It could be seen that his spirit was broken,
when Aunt Fanny mourned, shaking her head at him, smiling ruefully:

"Oh, if boys could only be girls!"

Herbert just looked at her.

"The worst thing," said his father;--"that is, if there's any part of it
that's worse than another--the worst thing about it all is this rumour
about Noble Dill."

"What about that poor thing?" Aunt Harriet asked. "We haven't heard."

"Why, I walked up from downtown with old man Dill," said Mr. Atwater,
"and the Dill family are all very much worried. It seems that Noble
started downtown after lunch, as usual, and pretty soon he came back to
the house and he had a copy of this awful paper that little Florence had
given him, and----"

"_Who_ gave it to him?" Aunt Fanny asked. "_Who_?