Finally the pressure from within became too strong and he blurted out
the whole story to his mother in order to make sure of what it meant.

"You never had a horse large enough to sit on," she declared
emphatically.

"You have been dreaming, child," Granny put in.

"What would the neighbours below have said," his mother continued. "And
the rag carpets on the floor would have caught the wheels, anyhow."

Removing the rag carpets except for purposes of cleaning was one of the
unforgivable sins, by the bye.

"And it isn't like your father either," Granny added after a while, not
without a suggestion of bitterness in her voice.

"Carl is always tired when he comes home," Keith's mother rejoined in a
tone that put an end to further discussion.

Granny's point made an impression on Keith's mind nevertheless. As far
as he could actually remember, his father had on no occasion showed such
a jolly spirit or done anything that could be used as basis for a belief
in that one questionable recollection.

At all times of the day Keith was enjoined to keep quiet--because his
mother was not well, or because of the neighbours, or just because "nice
children should not make a noise"--but it was only after his father's
return home that these injunctions must be taken quite seriously. The
father's appearance brought an instantaneous change in the atmosphere of
the place, the boy strove instinctly to be as little noticeable as
possible. If his mercurial temperament lured him into temporary
forgetfulness, a single stern word from the father sent him back into
silence and the refuge of his own corner--or into bed.

But the more he considered and conceded the unlikeliness of the scene
projected by some part of his mind with such persistency, the more
passionately he craved it to be a real memory of something that had
really happened to himself.

Perhaps it was merely a dream, as Granny had suggested. Perhaps it was
something he had wished....

Anyhow, he did wish that his father would let him come a little closer
to himself at times--not in the same way his mother did, but as he did
in the dream--or whatever it was....

Once more he fell into a deep study of when he had begun to remember so
hard that he could still remember it. Out of this he was awakened by his
mother's voice:

"What _is_ the matter, Keith?"

"I don't know what to play," he replied out of policy, as it might bring
him something either in the way of a diversio