y
longer. Mr. Spillikins is able to look after them.

Mr. Spillikins generally wears a little top hat and an English morning
coat. The boys are in Eton jackets and black trousers, which, at their
mother's wish, are kept just a little too short for them. This is
because Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins feels that the day will come some
day--say fifteen years hence--when the boys will no longer be children,
and meantime it is so nice to feel that they are still mere boys. Bob
is the eldest, but Sib the youngest is the tallest, whereas Willie the
third boy is the dullest, although this has often been denied by those
who claim that Gib the second boy is just a trifle duller. Thus at any
rate there is a certain equality and good fellowship all round.

Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is not to be seen walking with them. She is
probably at the race-meet, being taken there by Captain Cormorant of
the United States navy, which Mr. Spillikins considers very handsome of
him. Every now and then the captain, being in the navy, is compelled to
be at sea for perhaps a whole afternoon or even several days; in which
case Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is very generally taken to the Hunt Club
or the Country Club by Lieutenant Hawk, which Mr. Spillikins regards as
awfully thoughtful of him. Or if Lieutenant Hawk is also out of town
for the day, as he sometimes has to be, because he is in the United
States army, Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is taken out by old Colonel
Shake, who is in the State militia and who is at leisure all the time.

During their walks on Plutoria Avenue one may hear the four boys
addressing Mr. Spillikins as "father" and "dad" in deep bull-frog
voices.

"Say, dad," drawls Bob, "couldn't we all go to the ball game?"

"No. Say, dad," says Gib, "let's all go back to the house and play
five-cent pool in the billiard-room."

"All right, boys," says Mr. Spillikins. And a few minutes later one may
see them all hustling up the steps of the Everleigh-Spillikins's
mansion, quite eager at the prospect, and all talking together.

* * * * *

Now the whole of this daily panorama, to the eye that can read it,
represents the outcome of the tangled love story of Mr. Spillikins,
which culminated during the summer houseparty at Castel Casteggio, the
woodland retreat of Mr. and Mrs. Newberry.

But to understand the story one must turn back a year or so to the time
when Mr. Peter Spillikins used to walk on Plutoria Avenue alone,