t down their loads and were gone, Selina came to him and
said, "I should like you to come and look at him, sir."

She had been crying.

Sir Tancred went into the bathroom, and found Hildebrand Anne splashing
in the bath: "Hallo, Tinker," he said cheerfully, and turned sick at
the sight of the wales and bruises about the thin little body.

"Look at that, sir," said Selina fiercely; and she touched the worst of
them.

The child winced at her touch, gentle as it was, and said in his
quaint, thin voice, "Halbut did do that. Mine not like Halbut. No:
mine not like Halbut." And he shook his little head vigorously.

Sir Tancred groaned, and wished with all his heart that he had taken
advantage of his brief meeting with Halbut to give him a sound
thrashing. Then he thought with a vindictive satisfaction how bitterly
the brute would feel the loss of liquors consequent upon the loss of
his income. He went out, rang for a waiter, and bade him send for a
doctor.

When the doctor came he examined the bruises, and felt all the tiny
bones carefully. He declared that none of them were broken and that,
in spite of having been starved, the child was sound and healthy. The
moment the doctor's grip on him loosed, Tinker wriggled off his knee
and fled to Selina, who carried him away along with a selection from
the parcels to dress him.

"A bad case," said the doctor. "But I've seen worse, much worse. I
hope you'll put the matter into the hands of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and have the parents
prosecuted--picked him up in the gutter I suppose."

"I haven't made up my mind about prosecuting them," said Sir Tancred.

"Oh, have them prosecuted! Have them prosecuted! It stops others,"
said the doctor. "And besides, they might get the cat: it's the only
thing brutes of this kind understand." Then he added thoughtfully,
"There's one uncommon thing about this child--quite uncommon."

"What's that?"

"His vitality--he ought to be in bed, half-dying, with those bruises,
and starved as he is. But you saw how he struggled to get away from
me. Well, I'll write you a prescription for as strong a tonic as I
dare give a child."

He wrote the prescription, promised to be round every morning, and took
his fee. As he went away he said, "Someone ought to get six month's
hard labour for maltreating him."

After a while Selina brought in Tinker, dressed in his new clothes,
with his mat of hair cut clo