dog-pizen, and cure himself?"

When he was sure that he was out of sight, Allan sat down on a
convenient boulder at the side of the road, and gave himself up to
unrestrained mirth. The medicine which was about to prove fatal to Fido
would have caused only prolonged sleep if taken in small doses, at
proper intervals, by an adult. "It's a wonder she didn't take 'em all at
once," he thought. "And if she had--" He speculated, idly, upon the
probable effect.

His conscience pricked him slightly on account of the exaggeration in
which he had mischievously indulged, but he told himself that Roger
would be far better off in the city and his mother's consent would make
his going much less difficult. He also realised that if Roger were there
to amuse Barbara, Eloise might have more spare time than she would
otherwise.

He stopped long enough to give the druggist a bad quarter of an hour,
and then went back to the beach. Eloise and Roger were where he had left
them, and the boy's gloom was entirely gone.

"Your mother wants you," he said, as he sat down on the other side of
Eloise.

"All right--I'll go right up. How did she take it?"

"Very well. Just remember that you've saved her life, and you'll have no
trouble."

[Sidenote: Light-Hearted]

When Roger went up the street, he was whistling, from sheer
light-heartedness. Eloise had made so many plans for his future that he
saw fame and fortune already within his reach.

When he knocked, never having been allowed the freedom of a latch key,
he noted that all the blinds in the house were closed and wondered
whether his mother had gone to sleep again. After a suitable interval,
she opened the door, clad in her best black silk, and portentously
solemn.

"Why, Mother, what's the matter?"

"Come in," she whispered. "Doctor Conrad has just been tellin' me how
near I come to death. Oh, my son," she cried, throwing her arms around
his neck, "you have saved my life."

[Sidenote: Two Greetings]

It seemed to Roger like a paragraph torn from _The Metropolitan Weekly_,
but he patted her back soothingly as she clung to him. Maternal
outbursts of this sort were extremely rare. He remembered only one other
greeting like this--the day he had been swimming in the river with three
other small boys and had been brought home in a blanket, half drowned.

"I suppose I shouldn't regret takin' dog-pizen, if it cured my back and
give me the sleep I needed, but it was a dreadful narrow es