that and the even more vehement counsel of Henry
had the desired bracing effect; and Mike nerved himself to deal the
necessary blow at his father's tranquillity.

As the writer of this book takes no special joy in heart-breaking scenes
with fathers, the painful and somewhat violent scene with Mr. Laflin is
here omitted, and left to the imagination of any reader with a taste for
such unnatural collisions. Any one over thirty will agree that all the
reason was on Mr. Laflin's side, as all the instinct was on his son's.
Luckily for Mike, the instinct was to prove genuine, and his father to
live to be prouder of his rebellion than ever he would have been of his
obedience.

This scene over, it was only a matter of days--five alone were
left--before Mike must up and away in right good earnest.

"Oh, Mike," said Esther, "you're sure you'll go on loving me? I'm
awfully frightened of those pretty girls in ----'s company."

"You needn't be," said Mike; "there's only one girl in the world will
look at a funny bit of a thing like me."

"Oh, I don't know," said Esther, laughing, "some big girls have such
strange tastes."

"Well, let's hope that before many months you can come and look after
me."

"If we'd only a certain five pounds a week, we could get
along,--anything to be together. Of course, we'd have to be
economical--" said Esther, thoughtfully.

On the last night but one before his leaving, it was Mike's turn for a
farewell dinner. Half-a-dozen of his best friends assembled at the
"Golden Bee," and toasts and tears were mingled to do him honour. Henry
happily caught the general feeling of the occasion in the following
verses, not hitherto printed. Henry was too much in earnest at the time
to regard the bathos of rhyming "stage waits" with such dignities as
"summoning fates," except for which _naivete_ the poem is perhaps not a
bad example of sincere, occasional verse:

_Dear Mike, at last the wished hour draws nigh--
Weary indeed, the watching of a sky
For golden portent tarrying afar;
But here to-night we hail your risen star,
To-night we hear the cry of summoning fates--
Stage waits!

Stage waits! and we who love our brother so
Would keep him not; but only ere he go,
Led by the stars along the untried ways,
We'd hold his hand in ours a little space,
With grip of love that girdeth up the heart,
And kiss of eyes that giveth