ery bad way, Tommy,
without being aware of it. I cannot have anyone about me that I am not
sure is in thoroughly sound health."

"If you mean you've changed your mind and want to get rid of me--" began
Tommy, with its chin in the air.

"I don't want any of your uppishness," snapped Peter, who had wound
himself up for the occasion to a degree of assertiveness that surprised
even himself. "If you are a thoroughly strong and healthy person, as I
think you are, I shall be very glad to retain your services. But upon
that point I must be satisfied. It is the custom," explained Peter. "It
is always done in good families. Run round to this address"--Peter wrote
it upon a leaf of his notebook--"and ask Dr. Smith to come and see me
before he begins his round. You go at once, and don't let us have any
argument."

"That is the way to talk to that young person--clearly," said Peter to
himself, listening to Tommy's footsteps dying down the stairs.

Hearing the street-door slam, Peter stole into the kitchen and brewed
himself a cup of coffee.

Dr. Smith, who had commenced life as Herr Schmidt, but who in consequence
of difference of opinion with his Government was now an Englishman with
strong Tory prejudices, had but one sorrow: it was that strangers would
mistake him for a foreigner. He was short and stout, with bushy eyebrows
and a grey moustache, and looked so fierce that children cried when they
saw him, until he patted them on the head and addressed them as "mein
leedle frent" in a voice so soft and tender that they had to leave off
howling just to wonder where it came from. He and Peter, who was a
vehement Radical, had been cronies for many years, and had each an
indulgent contempt for the other's understanding, tempered by a sincere
affection for one another they would have found it difficult to account
for.

"What tink you is de matter wid de leedle wench?" demanded Dr. Smith,
Peter having opened the case. Peter glanced round the room. The kitchen
door was closed.

"How do you know it's a wench?"

The eyes beneath the bushy brows grew rounder. "If id is not a wench,
why dress it--"

"Haven't dressed it," interrupted Peter. "Just what I'm waiting to do--so
soon as I know."

And Peter recounted the events of the preceding evening.

Tears gathered in the doctor's small, round eyes. His absurd
sentimentalism was the quality in his friend that most irritated Peter.

"Poor leedle waif!" murmured the so