The Cure

HE was washed and combed and scented, and set up in his easy chair by the sunny window—just like an old doll, he thought. Ada, his wife, had been very much like a little girl, washing and dressing her doll, and propping it up in a chair, just under the canary’s cage. Very much like a little girl, she had backed away from him to admire the effect, when all was done. She had made him a sprightly little bow, her hands clasped against her breast, her small grey eyes twinkling in that secretive way they had, as though she had just been plotting against him … And so she had, often and often, plotted to buy finery for her body; or extravagant gewgaws for the house, like that set of Japanese birds painted on silk; or to give fanciful entertainments, like that Spring fête, when all the old chestnut trees in the garden had been strung with innumerable Chinese lanterns, and the summer-house suffocated in paper flowers, and a band rigged out like Hungarian gypsies. She had provided the costumes, and the whole affair, only one of many, had cost the devil of a lot of money. Why, the old silver punch bowls had never been allowed to be emptied. Even the band had had punch. Good stuff, too. Not like the disgusting fruit punches they gave you nowadays … Well, people had talked a lot about that fête. Twenty-five years ago it took less to amuse people. They’d talk over any fun they’d had for days afterward. Now they’d have forgotten it by the next day. They’d be off after something else. He’d like to see the garden fête that would excite his nephews, Gordon and Fred!

The canary hopped down to the bottom perch and peered at him over the little brass fence that enclosed its cage. It cocked its blond head at him. He hoped it wasn’t going to sing, for its noise hurt his head, but before he could stop himself, he had said—”tweet! tweet!” to it, and that was all the encouragement it needed. It burst into a cascade of shrill notes; then it turned to a piercing chatter from which, he thought, it would never desist. He lay back in his chair staring at it. He longed to have the bit of yellow fluff between his fingers. He would tweak its neck for it, by God—squeeze the senseless chatter out of it. Each note seemed like a tiny hammer on his brain. His forehead broke out in a sweat. He raised his voice and called, huskily:

“Ada! Ada!”

At the sound of his voice the canary sang more loudly than ever, completely drowning him out. He sat up and shook his fist at it and cursed it. Convulsed with joy it threw its head back on its ruffled throat and strained every nerve to excel all previous outbursts.

He sank back once more, and shut his eyes. Two tears pressed between the lids and trickled down his cheeks.

He lay quietly now, letting the sharp notes beat upon his brain, beat down his angry thoughts. He felt broken … A heavy lorrie rumbled down the street. The noise of it shook the summer air and rattled the window pane. When it had passed, the canary had ceased singing.

He weakly opened his eyes and looked up at it. It was eating a seed. It dropped the shell to the bottom of the cage and wiped its beak sharply on the perch. Then it hopped to the bottom perch and began to drink. There fell a delicious silence everywhere. Not a sound in the house, on the street. The full rich perfume of chestnut blossoms came in at the open window. He rolled his head towards the sweetness of it, and through the brightness of his tears saw the great tree standing in glory, its white plumes upright like perfumed candles.

Quietness in the street and through the house. Quietness now in his own spirit. He would soon be himself again if only the damned bird would let him be. It was an awful thing for a man to have a wife—to have been tied up to her for thirty-five years—who always wanted a canary singing or a music box jigging in the house.

There she was coming now, up the stairs. Always that same tripping, high-heeled walk. Walk the same if her back was breaking. Great old girl, Ada. Lively for her age. Showed her clothes off. A good looker.

He tried to look even weaker than he was as she came into the room. He let his chin sink into his breast, his hands lie feebly on the arms of the chair. She had been humming a little, in forced gaiety as she came into the room, but when she saw the sunlight playing over his bowed head, and the way the silky white hair that curled like a child’s, was gently stirred by the breeze, she hesitated, a look of mingled anxiety and compassion softening her features.

“Was he sleeping, then?” she asked, in a cooing voice.

“Hm—might ha’ been if the damn canary hadn’t screeched his head off. Nice bird to leave a helplesh man alone with.” It was hard for him to speak distinctly. His tongue was thick and his throat husky. His wife gave a trill of metallic laughter and made a little dart towards the canary.

“Oh, naughty, naughty, naughty,” she said. “Tweenty-weenty! Tweenty-weenty! Did he hurt his dear master’s head with him’s ‘ittle song?”

The canary, recognizing her, began to twitter petulantly. Her black, curled “transformation” made her look top-heavy. Her small grey eyes twinkled in her pale, powdered face.

Dick Boone regarded both her and the bird with equal disfavour.

“The matter with you both is,” he said, “that you think too much about yourselvesh. Always prinking and twittering and hopping from one perch to another. That’s what’sh the matter with you and the bird, Ada mine.”

With a fluttering movement she came from the canary to him, and bent her face towards his, smiling into his eyes.

“And I pleased him once, didn’t I?” she breathed. “There wasn’t a girl could match Ada, for elegance, for style!”

“Get away,” he said, crossly, turning his face away. “Suffocatin’ me. I don’ wan’ to be bothered.”

But she pressed closer, her thin lips folded in a smile. One of her long earrings was sharp against his cheek. The large sleeves of her pale blue silk tea-gown of the period enveloped him. The smell of her powder, and some scent that she always used on her” transformation”, made him feel choky and helpless.

“Going to be good?” she whispered, looking commandingly into his eyes.

“Hm—hm,” he grunted, playing with her beads.

“And take your egg-nog?”

“Hm—hm.”

“And nothing else—now look at me—nothing else, to make you naughty and sick?”

“No—o.”

She kissed him briskly and went into the bathroom.

In some ways the bathroom was like the little room behind a small chemist’s shop. Phials, measuring glasses, miscellaneous appliances for the sick room and the toilette were everywhere in hopeless disorder. Almost empty bottles, grey with dust, their sticky labels quite illegible, crowded the stained shelves. It was like a small, untidy kitchen, too, for there were a gas ring, several saucepans, several bottles of milk—from the full bottle of morning’s milk through sour degrees to the one whose curdled contents was crowned by a miniature forest of fuzzy green mould. Boxes of biscuits, cartons of eggs, tins of “foods”, glasses of jelly overflowed to the top of the wicker soiled clothes basket. No servant was ever allowed in here to tidy up. This was Ada Boone’s own secret room, where, filled with apprehensions, often sick at heart, though humming gaily so that Dick might not guess it, she administered to his needs in his bad times. And when he was “himself”, it was from this room that they emerged in turn, fresh, scented, combed, shaved, curled, a still dashing, still to-be-stared-after couple. A strange, pathetic, vain, wayward couple, the Boones. Childless, they quarrelled and made it up like children themselves. Though each disliked the other’s ways, they were deeply attached, very dependent on each other.

Presently, after the prolonged swishing of an eggbeater, she emerged, carrying an egg-nog.

“Nice ‘ittle egg-nog for ‘ittle boy,” she said.

“Not hungry,” he said, turning his head towards the window. “Rather look at the chestnut tree.”

“Ah, but he must eat and drink to get well again.”

He looked at her now, with a malicious grin.

“Drink?” he repeated.

“Not naughty stuff. Just milk to make him strong.”

He took the glass and sipped.

“Pf,” he said. “Insipid stuff.”

“More sugar? A wee dash of nutmeg?”

He raised his childlike blue eyes imploringly to her face.

“Just a drop of rum, old girl, to take away that sickly taste, give some body to it.”

All her softness was gone now. Her eyes struck compellingly into his. She said, harshly:

“Listen. Not one drop. Not if you went on your knees. Don’t I know what’s good for you? Am I not going to follow the doctor’s orders?”

“Very well.” He set the glass on the table beside him. “Shan’t drink it then, and that’sh flat.”

She went into one of her sudden passions. “You dare defy me?” she screamed. “I, who have not had my proper sleep in a fortnight because of you! You dare defy me!”

“I guessh I’m master in my own house.”

She gave a loud, bitter laugh. “A fine master, you are, aren’t you? Drinking yourself to death as fast as you can? I’d like to know where we’d be if it weren’t for the boys. As loyal to you as if they were your own sons.”

“You never gave me a son to go into the business,” he sneered.

Her face became crimson.

“No. And I’m thankful I didn’t, for he’d certainly have inherited your tastes. A man can’t be like you and not affect his children.”

Her voice beat him down, but he reiterated sullenly—” Shan’t drink the beastly stuff.”

“Not drink it? You’ll do as I command—I am the major-general. You are the private. I am the Sultana. You are a—a—”

“Eunuch,” he suggested, with a feeble laugh.

The canary, inspired by the hubbub, joined his hysteria to hers, rocking on his perch, his throat vibrating with madness.

Beads of sweat stood on Dick Boone’s forehead. He reached submissively for the glass. He was broken. It rattled pathetically against his teeth as he gulped the sweet mixture. Seeing him so, Ada’s anger melted as a tropical tempest into sunshine.

She took the empty glass from him, patted him encouragingly on the shoulder, and brought him the morning paper. But the egg-nog had not agreed with him. He hiccoughed, and was glad that he did so, since it showed that all was not well. But she only flitted about the room, smiling at him as she passed, touching the canary’s cage into dizzy jigging on its spiral holder.

“Another day or two,” she remarked, at last, “and he will be quite himself again. Go down to business like a nice little gentleman.”

She was called to the telephone . . . As soon as her loud, animated voice came from below he rose slowly from his chair, steadying himself by its arms, and grunting weakly. He took the empty glass in one hand and shuffled in his leather slippers to the tall old wardrobe. He fumbled with the key, opened the door cautiously, and thrust one hand into the back corner behind the coats, waistcoats and trousers.

He fumbled, and even put his head in among the clothes and peered into the dusk, but the bottle of Scotch he always kept there to be handy was there no longer. He made certain that this was so, then, baffled and resentful, he turned away. Someone had taken the bottle away. Ada, or one of the boys. If Gordon or Fred had done it, they’d hear from him. He’d not stand any damned interference from them. He’d make them eat humble pie! His sister Lizzie’s sons daring to interfere with him! Well, Lizzie had been an interfering piece in her day, and her sons took after her.

The canary had put its beak between the wires of its cage to watch his proceedings before the wardrobe. Now it burst into jeering song. He knew it was jeering at him by the way it cocked one beady eye in his direction.

“Stop it, you little devil,” he growled. “Whole world’s againsht me—even canary.”

It ceased its singing but began to utter ear-splitting “tweets! ”

“I’ll tweet you,” he said, savagely, and struck the cage with his hand.

He had only intended to jar it, to vent some of his impotent anger in frightening the bird, but the blow must have been sharper than he knew, for one corner of the bottom of the cage was loosened and, like a golden flash, the canary shot forth, alighting with a wild flutter on the tall head of the bed.

He was horrified, contrite. What had he done? What would Ada say? There was the open window—Oh, dear! oh, dear!

“Pretty—pretty—” he coaxed, shuffling towards it, all his fine white hair standing on end, his delicate, aquiline face, flushed by concern. “Come down to Daddy, then—little rascal.” Ada often called them Mammy and Daddy to the bird, and he unconsciously did so now in his anxiety to propitiate and capture it.

But it sped past his groping hand like a comet, floated on outstretched wings a second before the window, then struck itself against the mirror of the dressing-table.

Ada was coming. Humming as she came. He could not bear another scene. He would get into bed.

With sudden agility he clambered on to the high bed, and drew the rose pink satin quilt over him. Only his crest of white hair showed above the edge. He breathed heavily.

Ada entered with a sharp tapping of high-heeled shoes. There was a moment’s silence, then she, in turn, exclaimed—”Oh, dear—Oh, dear—” And ran to the window and closed it. Now there were stealthy movements about the room. Deep sighs of aggravation. Then a “ha!” of blessed relief. She had caught him. He was in the cage.

Deeply, serenely, Dick breathed against the satin quilt. Ada leaned over him and looked into the smooth mask of his face. She drew the quilt down a little so he would get more air, lowered the blind, covered the canary’s cage, and tiptoed from the room.

II

When he awoke he felt very much better. He got up without assistance, and, when the gaunt man-servant brought him his lunch, he spoke to him in a clearer, steadier voice than he had been able to produce since the last drinking bout.

He enjoyed his lunch. He had the fellow open the window and went and sat by it, breathing deeply of the warm, ambient air, scented with chestnut blossoms. A hose was playing on the greensward below, and a pair of robins were running in and out of the spray as if they loved it. New life beat in his blood like music. His hand, with its thick veins, that rested on the sunny window sill, was steady.

Ada came in, dressed to go somewhere in a flowered organdie, with enormous sleeves, and trailing skirt. She told him how the canary’s cage had come apart, and what a time she had had to catch him without making a noise. She was going out but would not be gone long. She smelled like a flower bed.

He leaned out of the window as she sailed down the walk. She looked up and blew him a kiss. He threw kisses back.

“Romeo, ah, Romeo!” she called.

“Ha, ha, Juliet! Good old girl!”

She was a very emotional woman. Emotions, real or pretended, filled her life. And he had always had the good sense, or the weakness perhaps, to play up to them.

He watched her out of sight. He watched a watering cart lumber heavily by, drawn by two sweating black horses. He was willing to bet they had belonged to an undertaker once. He watched young Mrs. Cowan ride gaily by on her new red bicycle, a small sailor hat topping her golden pompadour. A pretty piece, plump as a partridge.

He began to think about his business. He would telephone the office at once and see how things were going on. He had telephoned several times every day since he had been under the weather, but the boys spoke so indistinctly, there was such a buzzing in the phone, that there was not much satisfaction in it.

He took down the receiver and asked for the office number, that number about which hung an unfailing charm, for he was deeply proud of the wholesale tobacco and cigar business, that had been carried on by the Boones under the same roof for three generations, founded by his grandfather, a well connected Carolinian.

“Main 3344.”

He waited with almost pathetic eagerness in the dim hallway, a tousled-haired little man in a maroon dressing-gown.

“Hello,” came in Gordon’s deep, even tones.

“Oh, hello, Gordon. How’s things?”

“Everything’s fine. That is, Fred and I are working hard. How are you to-day, Uncle?”

“Oh—h, so, so. Anything new?”

“A big order from Martin Brothers. We don’t know whether to fill it or not. I hear they’re kind of shaky.”

“Don’t fill it!” His voice shook with excitement. “D—don’t fill it till I look into things. Hear me, Gordon? Don’t fill it!”

“All right, Uncle. All right. Just as you say. Good-bye.”

“Now mind, Gordon—wait—better send Fred to the phone—tell Fred—?”

But Gordon was gone.

He hung up the receiver and climbed the three steps from the landing, shuffling back to his room … The exhilaration of business stirred his blood. Why had that fool Gordon left the telephone so quickly? Those boys were getting above themselves and no mistake. Needed calling down. And they’d get it!

The man brought him a cup of tea.

He felt refreshed by it, and hastened weakly to the telephone again. He cleared his throat and demanded in a firm voice.

“Main 3344.”

“Hello.” This time it was the stenographer’s thin voice.

“Miss Wayling. It’s Mr. Boone speaking. Is Mr. Fred Mitchell there?”

“Just a minute, please, Mr. Boone. Mr. Mitchell’s in the outer office.”

He waited several minutes, then Fred’s sharp, nasal voice enquired curtly, “That you, Uncle?”

“Oh, hello Fred? H—how’sh things?”

He had intended to be stern, the heavy uncle, but Fred’s hard, crisp tones made him feel suddenly confused. He forgot what he had in mind when he came to the telephone.

“H-how’sh things,” he repeated.

“Good as can be expected in times like these. Don’t you worry. The new cigar is fine. Got a swell box. Screaming beauty of a Spanish girl on the lid. I’ll tell you what you can do. Think up a name for it. We’ve got to have a striking name. Good-bye.”

Before Dick could reply he was gone. However, he spent the rest of the afternoon quite cheerfully, between playing Patience, and thinking of a name for the new cigar. At last he hit on Adabella, a fine sonorous name, and a compliment to his wife, Adabella, Ada beautiful.

He could hardly wait for her to come home so he could tell her. And when she did come and he told her, she was really charmed. She was especially tender with him that evening, and, when the boys came in after dinner, they were especially nice. All three stood about him, smiling down at him, and looking, somehow, rather anxious about him; Ada in her flowered dress with a dash of rouge on her lips; Gordon with his built out shoulders, and, already, the smug, aggressive look of the successful business man; Fred, sharp as a whip.

It was Fred who came in later, with a small glass in his hand, and approached his chair, smiling.

“I guess a little drink wouldn’t do you any harm, to-night, Uncle,” he remarked, casually.

Something steely in his voice, penetrating in his cold eyes, arrested Dick’s attention.

“When I want a drink, I’ll ask for it,” he said, sulkily.

Fred showed astonishment, chagrin. “Well, from what I have heard you wanted one pretty badly to-day,” he observed.

Anger flamed into Dick’s eyes. So they talked him over among them, did they?

“You can mind your own business,” he retorted. I’ll not stand any interference from you.”

Gordon came in from the hall. He must have been listening, for he said, with nervous cheerfulness.

“Well, if you won’t have one with Fred, Uncle, have it with me. You’ve reached the stage where it’ll do you good. Brace you up.”

Dick turned on the two young men with sudden vehemence. “What’s the matter with you two, anyway? What are you trying to do? Make me drink so you can have the run of things a bit longer?” Suspicion crept into his eyes. “Get out. Do you hear? Get out! I won’t have it!”

His wife’s voice came from the downstairs hall, sharp with anxiety. “What’s the matter, boys?”

He started toward the door to go to her, but Fred laid his hand on his arm, his steely eyes looked into his. He held the glass to his lips.

“Look here, Uncle, you’ve got to drink it. There’s no use objecting.”

Gordon was on his other side, gripping his other arm. Still both were smiling. He felt suddenly weak and confused. If they were set on his taking a drink, he’d better do it. He wasn’t strong enough to resist those two smiling, staring, bright-eyed nephews. Shaking, he gulped the whiskey down … Well, it was good. Nothing wrong about it, but they shouldn’t have persisted that way. It wasn’t respectful.

The room seemed to float around them, as though they were all under water. Above, the great globes of the gasolier shone like distant moons, through leagues of shimmering, green sea. The two nephews were white faced and goggle-eyed, like strange fish. A booming, as of distant surf, made other sounds indistinct but he faintly heard Gordon say:

“Pretty dopey, what?”

He had his coat on. His silk hat was over one eye. Strange to wear a frock coat and silk hat at the bottom of the sea. Ada was there, too, a long-tailed mermaid. Adabella. She was kissing him. Shedding salt, salt tears. Adabella, Ada mine ….

Lights flashed by. Wheels rumbled. He slept.

He had slept for several hours when he opened his eyes, refreshed, but with a sort of buzzing in his ears. There was a soft light in the room, shaded from the bed by a screen. It was several minutes before the shapes of the furniture in the room resolved themselves from unfamiliar shadows, and he perceived that all about him was strange. He turned to look for Ada’s head, divested of its “transformation”, on the other pillow but it bulged, smooth and white beside him … A tremor of fear shook him. He raised himself on his elbow and stared wildly about the room. It was comfortable, with plain cretonne coverings on the chairs, in perfect neatness, very different from the luxurious disorder that he and Ada loved. He had never seen the room before.

With an exclamation of dismay, he would have sprung from the bed, but at the sound of his movements, a short thick-set man appeared from behind the screen and laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Just lie down, Mr. Boone,” he said, soothingly, in a muffled, heavy voice. “You haven’t been very well. Dr. Searle will soon be in to see you.”

Dr. Searle! The name struck his brain like a blow, and yet he could not dislodge from the murk of his bewilderment the sinister significance attached to it. Searle—White—Tom White—his friend, dead now, old Tom had been in Searle’s Institute twice. The first time came out “cured”, the second, died—after months—or was it years?—of it. Searle’s Institute! A cure! He knew what their methods were. Disgusting.

And Ada had let him in for this. The boys he had generously taken into his business—the business of Boone and Son—had done this filthy trick to him—had persuaded Ada it was for the best. A cure! Searle’s cure! A month of it would kill him. Kill him! And they’d be glad. Have the business to themselves. The miserable, ungrateful cubs. Lizzie’s cubs. She’d been an ungrateful sister and now—her cubs!

The attendant regarded him speculatively. Was the old fellow going to be troublesome?

“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” he asked “Would you like a cup of cocoa?”

“No, no.” His face was a pale mask. No sign in it of the turmoil of his thoughts. “Except my nightshirt. I’d like that. Why am I just in my underclothes?”

“Well, you see, sir, you wasn’t very bright when they brought you in, and they thought the less fussing over you the better.”

“Good boys,” murmured Dick. “Kind, thoughtful boys. My nephews.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll help you on with your nightshirt now.” The man went to a clothes closet, and Dick had a glimpse of his clothes hanging there, limp and expressionless, like a dead man’s clothes.

He was so weak, it appeared, that the attendant had to support him while the nightshirt was put on. He sank back on the pillow with a deep sigh of contentment.

“Let me be now,” he muttered. “Want to shleep. Must get lots o’ sleep.”

The attendant lowered the gas. “If you want me, I’m right in the next room,” he said. The only answer was a snuffling snore.

Dick heard him moving about in the next room. He heard footsteps coming along the passage, and another man’s voice from the doorway asking:

“What’s he like?”

“Quiet as a lamb. Sound asleep. I’m going to have a snooze myself. Goodness knows I need it after the time I had with Mr. Gidding last night. I’m going to make a big kick against all this night duty, you’ll see.”

III

His heart was hammering against his ribs as it hadn’t done since he was a boy up to mischief, as, an hour later, he stood, fully dressed, in the doorway of the next room. It was a small sitting-room with a door leading into the passage. It stood open but when he had tried the outer door of the bedroom he had found it locked. He must pass through this room.

Carrying his top hat in one hand and his shoes in the other, he glided past the sleeping form of the attendant, huddled uncomfortably on a narrow sofa. The passage was dark, save for the moonlight that fell through a grated window at the end, but he could make out the dark cavern of the stairway, and, as he cautiously descended, the thick carpet deadened all sound, and his light weight caused no creaking of the steps. From a room above came a steady, dismal groaning that made his blood freeze. If he hadn’t been wide awake, alert, resourceful, he might have stayed there to add his groans to the night.

The hall below was lighted by a gas jet burning under a coloured globe. Through an open double doorway, he saw the dim shape of a dining-table, and the faint glimmer of silver on a sideboard. He entered and examined the three windows. They were large, and locked securely by some patent device he could not discover. A cold sweat of fear bathed his body. Despair was about to seize him when he felt a cool draught on his back, and found that it came from the opening into a serving pantry. He thought:

“If I can only squeeze my body through there, I’m a free man.”

Carefully he put his shoes and top hat through first, then, mounting a chair, he placed one knee on the projecting shelf.

“What a blessing, I am small,” he thought, “for this hole is not much bigger than a rabbit’s burrow.”

Strained, bruised, shaking in every limb, he stood, at last, in the serving pantry. A fresh breeze gushed in through the wide open window.

With a sob of joy, he threw his hat and shoes out on to the grass, and clambered after them.

He was safe from that nightmare house! He was free beneath the velvet sky where the warm moon hung like a gilded lamp and the little stars trembled in the treetops.

He sat down on the grass and put on his shoes, fumbling over the lacing of them; he had already put his hat on one side of his head. No one saw him, a dishevelled little man, creep through the side gate into the street.

He paused a moment to cast a look of mingled triumph and abhorrence at the dark shape of the house towering above him, then moved like a shadow down the quiet street towards a small park that surrounded an old church, where he remembered a bench on which he could rest a while and think.

The City Hall clock struck four as he turned into the park. Already there was a faint luminous light in the east. He sank to the bench feeling weak, but filled with an odd exhilaration. He removed his hat and let the sweet air run like caressing fingers through his thick white hair. He emitted a great “whew” of relief and satisfaction. It was years since he had been out on the street at this hour alone. He recalled some of the nocturnal adventures of his young manhood and grinned audaciously at the dawn. Why, it must have been through this very park, at this hour, forty years ago, that he and that girl in the pink domino had run, with the others in pursuit. What a lovely, long white neck she had had! He thought of Fred and Gordon and their pleasures, and the thought made him sick. Gordon, and his built out shoulders—Fred, with his tight, sallow face … He chuckled as he savoured the surprise he had in store for them.

He dozed, and when he opened his eyes it was daylight. Milk carts were rattling down the street, empty street-cars jolting past. He boarded one and rode to the station. In the station restaurant he had a chop and a cup of coffee. In the station barber shop he had a shave, a haircut, and his clothes brushed, remarking to the man that travelling all night made one look very seedy.

From the station, he took a cab to the warehouse. The gilt sign—John Boone and Son—glittered in the morning sunlight. Well, there was life in Son yet-he’d show them. As he passed through the office, there were looks of surprise at his early arrival—perhaps surprise that he should arrive at all—but there were smiles, real smiles of pleasure, and he glowed in return.

Old Parsons, the book-keeper, took his coat and hat, and he sat down behind his desk to await his nephews. While he waited he dozed a little but he was sitting upright when they came in together. Fred was saying:

“Well, I wonder how old 3344 feels this morning. He won’t be calling us up anyway. Thank goodness.”

“Old 3344 feels very well, thank you,” answered Dick, leaning over the desk to glare at them. “Yes, he’ll be calling up this office quite often but you won’t be here to answer.”

“Why, Uncle—” stammered the young men.

“Yes—’Why, Uncle’ “—growled their uncle. “You thought you’d put me in a ‘Cure’, didn’t you? Well, it worked faster than you expected. Now, you may put your hats on your swelled heads and go. Never let me see your faces again.”

“Oh, Uncle,” pleaded Gordon, “I think that for Mother’s sake—”

“Yes, I’ve borne with you for your mother’s sake, and I bore with her for her mother’s sake. Now, I’m through. Go.”

.           .           .           .           .

He paid the cabman at his own door, opened the low wrought-iron gate, and walked up the gravelled path with an almost bridegroom feeling of nervousness and elation. What would Ada be doing? He attached no blame to her in this affair. It was all the nephews’ doing.

The chestnut tree held its white plumes towards the sun, the lawn unrolled its dewy greenness, the tones of the largest music-box tinkled from within. It was playing “The Blue Danube”.

It did seem a little callous of Ada to have set it going this morning. But, when, panting from the exertion, he reached the door of their bedroom, the sight that met his eyes would have melted any heart. Ada was lying face downward on the bed sobbing bitterly, her pink silk peignoir rumpled, her “transformation” askew.

“Oh, Dick,” she was sobbing, and again—”Oh, Dick,”

He hurried to her and raised her. “It’s all right, Ada mine. I’m here. Safe and sound. I’m here—I’m here—”

As she turned towards him with amazement and relief, he added, with his face twisted like a child’s that is about to cry—” I’m going to be good, Ada,” and sank into her arms.