eve. He wondered if he smelled of leather. He planned to go
around to the kitchen door and wash his hands at the pump in the yard
before entering the house, but he could not be sure about the
leather. He wondered if Rose would notice it and be disgusted. His
heart sank as he neared home. He sniffed at his coat-sleeve again. He
wondered if he could possibly slip into the bedroom and put on
another coat for dinner before Sylvia saw him. He doubted if he could
manage to get away unnoticed after dinner. He speculated, if Sylvia
asked him where he was going again, what he could say. He considered
what he could say if she were to call him to account for his long
absence that forenoon.

When he reached the house he entered the side yard, stopped at the
pump, washed his hands and dried them on his handkerchief, and drank
from the tin cup chained to the pump-nose. He thought he might enter
by the front door and steal into his bedroom and get the other coat,
but Sylvia came to the side door.

"Where in the world have you been?" she said. Henry advanced,
smiling, with the peppermints. "Why, Henry," she cried, in a voice of
dismay which had a gratified ring in it, "you've been and bought a
whole pound! I only said to buy a quarter."

"They're good for you," said Henry, entering the door.

Sylvia could not wait, and put one of the sweets in her mouth, and to
that Henry owed his respite. Sylvia, eating peppermint, was oblivious
to leather.

Henry went through into the bedroom and put on another coat before he
sat down at the dinner-table.

Sylvia noticed that. "What did you change your coat for?" said she.

Henry shivered as if with cold. "I thought the house seemed kind of
damp when I came in," he said, "and this coat is some heavier."

Sylvia looked at him with fretful anxiety. "You've got cold. I knew
you would," she said. "You stayed out late last night, and the dew
was awful heavy. I knew you would catch cold. You had better stop at
the drug store and get some of those pellets that Dr. Wallace puts
up."

Again was Henry's way made plain for him. "Perhaps I had," said he,
eagerly. "I'll go down and get some after dinner."

But Horace innocently offered to save him the trouble. "I go past the
drug store," said he. "Let me get them."

But Sylvia unexpectedly came to Henry's aid. "No," she said. "I think
you had better not wait till Mr. Allen comes home from school. Dr.
Wallace says those pellets ought to be taken righ