g
to say to Mr. Upton, on paper, unless it was on business too. His
youngest son, however, had furnished the more impressive address to Dr.
Bompas, whose hurried hand it was that dealt the first blow.

It so happened that a letter from Dr. Bompas had been expected; this made
the letter he wrote especially upsetting, and for the following reason.
Mrs. Upton had been so shaken by her vivid dream on the Thursday morning,
that her husband had telegraphed to Bompas, somewhat against his own
judgment, to know how he found their son. The reply had been: "Better
expecting him again to-day will write"--which prepared the family for still
more reassuring accounts in the morning. Lettice felt relieved as the
original discoverer of Dr. Bompas. Horace found his views confirmed as to
the systematic exaggeration of a touch of asthma, and Fred was only
prevented by absence from entirely agreeing with Horace. Mr. Upton
thought no more about the matter. But poor Mrs. Upton lay upstairs
looking forward to a letter which it was quite impossible to show her now
that it had come.

Mr. Upton read it more than once without a word; and it was not his way to
keep a family matter to himself at his own table; but on this occasion he
triumphed over temperament with an extraordinary instinct for what was in
the air.

"The most infernal letter I ever had in my life!" was his only comment as
he thrust it in his pocket out of sight. Lettice, however, might have
seen that her father was far more distressed than angry had not Horace
promptly angered him by saying he was not surprised. The young fellow's
face and the old one's neck were redder before the last was heard of that
remark. A garbled paraphrase of the letter was eventually vouchsafed; the
boy had made very little improvement, and was not likely to make more
while he remained at a school where he was allowed to use any remedy he
liked; in fact, until he was taken away from school, and placed under his
own immediate control in town, Dr. Bompas declined to persevere with the
case.

"Blighter!" said Horace impartially, as though now there were two of them.
Such was, in fact, the sum of his observations to Lettice when their
father had taken himself and his letter upstairs. Young Tony was not
"playing the game"; but then he never did play it to the expert
satisfaction of Fred and Horace.

Upstairs the husband gave a more elaborate version of his letter, and told
a lie. He said he ha