shing home from the office on
the plea that it was time for Master Sidney's sun-bath.

So I called up my housekeeper, and placed the matter before her.

I said: "Let me introduce you to Sidney. He is very dear to me; dearer
to me than a--a brother. No, on second thoughts my brother is
perhaps--well, anyhow, Sidney is very dear to me. I will show my trust
in you by asking you to tend him for me. Here are a few notes about his
health. Frankly he is delicate. But the doctors have hope. With care,
they think, he may live to be a hundred-and-fifty. His future is in your
hands."

My housekeeper thanked me for this mark of esteem and took the card of
instructions away with her. I asked her for it a week afterwards and it
appeared that, having committed the rules to memory, she had lost it.
But that she follows the instructions I have no doubt; and certainly she
and Sidney understand each other's ways exactly. Automatically she gives
him his bath, his massage, his run in the park. When it rains or snows
or shines, she knows exactly what to do with Sidney.

But as a consequence I see little of him. I suppose it must always be
so; we parents must make these sacrifices for our children. Think of a
mother only seeing her eldest-born for fifteen weeks a year through the
long period of his schooling; and think of me, doomed to catch only the
most casual glimpses of Sidney until he is ninety.

For, you know, I might almost say that I never see him at all now. As I
go to my work I may, if I am lucky, get a fleeting glance of him on the
tiles, where he sits drinking in the rain or sun. In the evening, when I
return, he is either out in the moonlight or, if indoors, shunning the
artificial light with the cloth over his head. Indeed, the only times
when I really see him to talk to are when Celia comes to tea with me.
Then my housekeeper hurries him in from his walk or his sun-bath, and
puts him, brushed and manicured, on my desk; and Celia and I whisper
fond nothings to him. I believe Celia thinks he lives there!

. . . . .

As I began by saying, I weep for Sidney's approaching end. For my
housekeeper leaves this week. A new one takes her place. How will she
treat my poor Sidney? The old card of instructions is lost; what can I
give her in its place? The legend that Sidney's is a precious life--that
he must have his morning bath, his run, his glass of hot water after
meals! She would laugh at it. Besi