to be broken down because some foolish paper
attacks him; but you were emphatic in your denunciation of the injustice
that would be liable to be done if--"

"Oh, I had only spoken for about half an hour to Mr. Courtland then,"
said Phyllis. "I think I know him better now."

"Yes, you have spoken with him for another half hour; you therefore
know him twice as well as you did," remarked her father. "I wonder if he
admitted to you having done all that he was accused of doing."

He saw in a moment from the little uneasy movement of her eyes that he
had made an excellent guess at the general result of the conversation
at Mrs. Linton's little lunch. He had not yet succeeded in obtaining any
details from his daughter regarding her visit to Ella. She had merely
told him that Ella had kept her to lunch, and that Mr. Courtland had
been there also.

"Yes. I do believe that he admitted everything," he continued, with
a laugh as he thought how clever he was. (He had frequent reasons for
laughing that laugh.)

"No," said Phyllis doubtfully; "he did not admit everything."

"There was some reservation? Perhaps it was melinite that he employed
for the massacre of the innocents of New Guinea, not dynamite."

"No; it was dynamite. But the natives had stolen it from his steam
launch and they exploded it themselves."

Mr. Ayrton lay back in his chair convulsed with laughter.

"And that is the true story of the dynamite massacre?" he cried. "That
is how it comes that, in the words of the _Aneroid_, the works of
evangelization on Nonconformist principles is likely to be retarded
for some time? The missionaries are quite right too. And what about his
miracles--they suggested a miracle, didn't they?"

"Oh, that was some foolishness about setting spirits of wine on fire,"
said Phyllis. "The natives thought that it was water, you know."

Mr. Ayrton laughed more heartily than before.

"That is the crowning infamy," he cried. "My dear Phyllis, it would be
quite impossible to allow so delicious a series of missionary muddles to
pass unnoticed. I think I see my way clearly in the matter."

She knew that he did. She knew that he regarded most incidents in the
political world merely as feeders to his phrase-making capacity. She
knew that it would be impossible to repress him now in the matter of
Courtland and the missionaries; she fully realized the feelings of
Frankenstein.

Only the weakest protest did she make against her father's in