Peter Hope was unable to see how Grindley junior's disappearance into the
wilds of Africa was going to assist the matter under discussion.

Grindley junior's view was that the wilds of Africa would afford a
fitting background to the passing away of a blighted existence.

Peter Hope had a suspicion that Grindley junior had for the moment parted
company with that sweet reasonableness that otherwise, so Peter Hope felt
sure, was Grindley junior's guiding star.

"I mean it, sir," reasserted Grindley junior. "I am--" Grindley junior
was about to add "well educated"; but divining that education was a topic
not pleasing at the moment to the ears of Helvetia Appleyard, had tact
enough to substitute "not a fool. I can earn my own living; and I should
like to get away."

"It seems to me--" said the sub-editor.

"Now, Tommy--I mean Jane," warned her Peter Hope. He always called her
Jane in company, unless he was excited. "I know what you are going to
say. I won't have it."

"I was only going to say--" urged the sub-editor in tone of one suffering
injustice.

"I quite know what you were going to say," retorted Peter hotly. "I can
see it by your chin. You are going to take their part--and suggest their
acting undutifully towards their parents."

"I wasn't," returned the sub-editor. "I was only--"

"You were," persisted Peter. "I ought not to have allowed you to be
present. I might have known you would interfere."

"--going to say we are in want of some help in the office. You know we
are. And that if Mr. Grindley would be content with a small salary--"

"Small salary be hanged!" snarled Peter.

"--there would be no need for his going to Africa."

"And how would that help us?" demanded Peter. "Even if the boy were
so--so headstrong, so unfilial as to defy his father, who has worked for
him all these years, how would that remove the obstacle of Mr.
Appleyard's refusal?"

"Why, don't you see--" explained the sub-editor.

"No, I don't," snapped Peter.

"If, on his declaring to his father that nothing will ever induce him to
marry any other woman but Miss Appleyard, his father disowns him, as he
thinks it likely--"

"A dead cert!" was Grindley junior's conviction.

"Very well; he is no longer old Grindley's son, and what possible
objection can Mr. Appleyard have to him then?"

Peter Hope arose and expounded at length and in suitable language the
folly and uselessness of the scheme.

But what chanc