suaded by Boaler, and the two went
up to the hall, and, to Mr. Bultitude's intense relief, forgot to close
the glazed door which cut him off from the staircase.

As he followed them upstairs at a cautious interval, and thought over
what he had just so unwillingly overheard, he felt as one who had just
been subjected to a moral showerbath. "That dreadful woman!" he groaned.
"Who would have dreamed that she would get such horrible ideas into her
head? I shall never be able to look either of those women in the face
again: they will both have to go--and she made such excellent soup, too.
I do hope that miserable Dick has not been fool enough to write to
her--but no, that's too absurd."

But more than ever he began to wish that he had stayed in the
playground.

When he reached the hall he stood there for some moments in anxious
deliberation over his best course of proceeding. His main idea was to
lie in wait somewhere for Dick, and try the result of an appeal to his
better feelings to acknowledge his outcast parent and abdicate
gracefully.

If that failed, and there was every reason to expect that it would fail,
he must threaten to denounce him before the whole party. It would cause
a considerable scandal no doubt, and be extremely repugnant to his own
feelings, but still he must do it, or frighten Dick by threatening to do
it, and at all hazards he must contrive during the interview to snatch
or purloin the magic stone; without that he was practically helpless.

He looked round him: the study was piled up with small boys' hats and
coats, and in one corner was a kind of refined bar, where till lately a
trim housemaid had been dispensing coffee and weak lemonade; she might
return at any moment, he would not be safe there.

Nor would the dining-room be more secluded, for in it there was an
elaborate supper being laid out by the waiters which, as far as he could
see through the crack in the door, consisted chiefly of lobsters,
trifle, and pink champagne. He felt a grim joy at the sight, more than
he would suffer for this night's festivities.

As he stole about, with a dismal sense of the unfitness of his sneaking
about his own house in this guilty fashion, he became gradually aware of
the scent of a fine cigar, one of his own special Cabanas. He wondered
who had the impudence to trespass on his cigar-chest; it could hardly be
one of the children.

He traced the scent to a billiard room which he had built out at the
si