e
at his father.

"Why, the _very_ best, of course," says Joyce, nodding emphatically.
"Always remember that, Tommy. It's a good thing to _be_, you know.
_You'll_ want to be that, won't you?"

But if she has hoped to make a successful appeal to Tommy's noble
qualities (hitherto, it must be confessed, carefully kept hidden), she
finds herself greatly mistaken.

"No, I won't," says that truculent person distinctly. "I want to be a
big general with a cocked hat, and to kill people. I don't want to be a
husband _at all_. What's the good of that?"

"To pursue the object would be to court defeat," says Mr. Monkton
meekly. He rises from the table, and, seeing him move, his wife rises
too.

"You are going to your study?" asks she, a little anxiously. He is about
to say "no" to this, but a glance at her face checks him.

"Yes, come with me," says he instead, answering the lovely silent appeal
in her eyes. That letter has no doubt distressed her. She will be
happier when she has talked it over with him--they two alone. "As for
you, Thomas," says his father, "I'm quite aware that you ought to be
consigned to the Donjon keep after your late behavior, but as we don't
keep one on the premises, I let you off this time. Meanwhile I haste to
my study to pen, with the assistance of your enraged mother, a letter to
our landlord that will induce him to add one on at once to this
building. After which we shall be able to incarcerate you at our
pleasure (but _not_ at yours) on any and every hour of the day."

"Who's Don John?" asks Tommy, totally unimpressed, but filled with
lively memories of those Spaniards and other foreign powers who have
unkindly made more difficult his hateful lessons off and on.

CHAPTER II.

"No love lost between us."

"Well," says Mr. Monkton, turning to his wife as the study (a rather
nondescript place) is reached. He has closed the door, and is now
looking at her with a distinctly quizzical light in his eyes and in the
smile that parts his lips. "Now for it. Have no qualms. I've been
preparing myself all through breakfast and I think I shall survive it.
You are going to have it out with me, aren't you?"

"Not with _you_," says she, returning his smile indeed, but faintly, and
without heart, "that horrid letter! I felt I _must_ talk of it to
someone, and----"

"_I_ was that mythical person. I quite understand. I take it as a
special compliment."

"I know it is hard on you, but when I