ever dream. What was it
all about?"

"Flowers!" John Martin snapped, "idiotic flowers! Roses, lilac,
tulips! Bah! I do wish you would have some other hobby."

Gladys looked at her aunt again, this time with a half serious, half
questioning expression.

"Shall I be a politician?" she cooed, "and fill the house with
suffragettes? You bad man, I believe you would revel in it. Don't you
think so, Auntie?"

"I think, instead of teasing your father so unmercifully, you had
better pour him out a cup of tea," Miss Templeton replied. "Jack,
there's a letter for you."

"Where? Under my plate! what a place to put it. That's you," and John
Martin frowned, or rather, attempted to frown, at Gladys. "Why it's
about Davenport--Dick Davenport. He's very ill--had a stroke
yesterday, and the doctor declares his condition critical. His nephew,
Shiel, so Anne says, has been sent for, and arrived at Sydenham last
night! If that's not bad news I don't know what is!" John Martin said,
thrusting his plate away from him and leaning back in his chair. "It's
true I can manage the business all right myself--and there's the
possibility, of course, that this young Shiel may shape all right. I
suppose if anything happens he will step into Dick's shoes. I've never
heard Dick mention any one else. Poor old Dick!"

"I am so sorry, father!" Gladys said, laying her hand on his. "But
cheer up! It may not be as bad as you expect. Shall you go and see how
he is?"

"I think so, my dear! I think so," John Martin replied, "but don't
worry me about it now. Talk to your aunt and leave me out of it, I'm a
bit upset. My brain's in a regular whirl!"

Undoubtedly the news was something in the nature of a blow: for Dick
Davenport, apart from being John Martin's partner--partner in the firm
of Martin and Davenport, the world-renowned conjurors, whose hall in
the Kingsway was one of the chief amusement places in London, was John
Martin's oldest friend. They had been chums at Cheltenham College, had
entered the Army and gone to India together, had quitted the Service
together, and, on returning together to England, had started their
conjuring business, first of all in Sloane Street, and subsequently in
the Kingsway. From the very start their enterprise had met with
success, and, had it not been for Davenport's wild extravagance, they
would have been little short of millionaires. But Davenport, though a
most lovable character in every respect, could not keep mon