his growth with a more
than paternal devotion. "'E's all I 'ave," he often said to himself,
and had been known to let out the fact in the afore-mentioned group of
English upper servants, a small but exclusive circle in the multiplex
life of New York.

In Steptoe's opinion Master Rash had never had a chance. Born many
years after his parents had lived together childlessly, he had come
into the world constitutionally neurasthenic. Steptoe had never known
a boy who needed more to be nursed along and coaxed along by
affection, and now and then by indulgence. Instead, the system of
severity had been applied with results little short of calamitous. He
had been sent to schools famous for religion and discipline, from
which he reacted in the first weeks of freedom in college, getting
into dire academic scrapes. Further severity had led to further
scrapes, and further scrapes to something like disgrace, when the war
broke out and a Red Cross job had kept him from going to the bad. The
mother had been a self-willed and selfish woman, claiming more from
her son than she ever gave him, and never perceiving that his was a
nature requiring a peculiar kind of care. After her death Steptoe had
prayed for a kind, sweet wife to come to the boy's rescue, and the
answer had been Miss Barbara Walbrook.

When the engagement was announced, Steptoe had given up hope. Of Miss
Walbrook as a woman he had nothing to complain. Walter Wildgoose
reported her a noble creature, splendid, generous, magnificent, only
needing a strong hand. She was of the type not to be served but to be
mastered. Rashleigh Allerton would goad her to frenzy, and she would
do the same by him. She was already doing it. For weeks past Steptoe
could see it plainly enough, and what would happen after they were
married God alone knew. For himself he saw no future but to hang on
after the wedding as long as the new mistress of the house would allow
him, take his dismissal as an inevitable thing, and sneak away and
die.

It was part of Steptoe's training not to notice anything till his
attention was called to it. So having said his "Good-morning, sir," he
went to the closet, took down the hanger with the coat and waistcoat
belonging to the suit of which he saw that Allerton had put on the
trousers, and waited till the young man was ready for his
ministrations.

Allerton was still brushing his hair, as he said over his shoulder:
"There's a young woman in the house, Steptoe. B