eacefully, calm as cathedral-pillars.

"I say, I'm tired," said Van der Welcke, feeling a little older, for the
moment, than his son. "Addie, how you take it out of your father!"

Addie laughed, pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief. Van der Welcke rested his head on Addie's knee.

"Move higher up: you're not comfortable like that," said Addie.

And, catching his father under the arm-pits, he hoisted him up a bit:

"No, that won't do either," he said. "Look here, you're squashing my
stomach!"

"Is this better?"

"Yes, if you keep still, old chap, and don't move, you can stay like
that."

And he passed his fingers through his father's short, curly hair, while
Van der Welcke lay silent, closed his eyes and thought:

"Fancy me, when I was fourteen, pulling up my father by his arms and
saying to him, 'Look here, you're squashing my stomach!... If you keep
still, old chap, you can stay like that!'"

And he suddenly began to splutter with laughter.

"I say, what's up? What are you laughing at?"

"Addie, I was thinking, I was thinking...."

"Well, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking...."

And Van der Welcke began to wobble up and down with laughter.

"Oh, but I say! Woa! woa! Don't go jumping about on my stomach like
that! Hi! Stop! Keep still! What's the joke?"

"I was thinking ... of your Grandpapa's face ... if ... when I was your
age ... I had hauled him up like that by his arms and said to him, 'If
you keep still ... if you keep still...!'"

Addie's sense of humour made him see the picture at once: Grandpapa,
getting on for forty and very stately and dignified, and Papa, a boy
like himself; and Papa saying:

"If you keep still, old chap, you can stay like that!"

And both of them burst with laughter, one on top of the other; and
Addie, whom his father's weight prevented from laughing as he would have
liked to, flung his legs madly in the air, almost stood on his head,
until Van der Welcke tumbled backwards, with his head lower than his
feet:

"Bother you! I was just so comfortable!"

Addie took pity on Papa, pulled him up again under his arms, dragged him
about most disrespectfully, first shoved his head on his chest ... no,
that hurt ... then a little lower down ... on his stomach.... There, he
could stay like that....

But Van der Welcke kept on laughing like a lunatic. And Addie was the
first to recover his seriousness:

"Father, stop it now! Stop shaking a