d to
penetrate to your brain. Allow me to apply a little of this ointment to
the parting, which in your case is more definite than with Eleanor; and
as our lightest actions should proceed from principles, I may mention
that the principle on which I propose to apply the Leather-softener to
your scalp is that on which the blacksmith's wife gave your cholera
medicine to the second girl, when she began with rheumatic fever--'it
did such a deal of good to our William.' Now, this unguent has done 'a
deal of good' to the leather of my boots. Why should it not successfully
lubricate the skin of your skull?"

Only the dread of "a row" between Jack and Clem enabled me to keep
anything like gravity.

"Don't talk nonsense, Jack!" said I, as severely as I could. (I fear
that, like the rest of the world, I snubbed Jack rather than Clement,
because his temper was sweeter, and less likely to resent it.)
"Clement, I'm very stupid, but I don't quite see how what _you_ said
applies to what _I_ said."

"You said, 'How happy we were, that summer we went sketching!' or words
to that effect. It's just like a man's writing about the careless
happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to,
the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the
night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his
knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o'clock, and having a lie
on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought,
and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one of your
sketches."

"I got into the 'Household Album' with mine, however," said Jack; "and I
defy an A.R.A. to have had more difficulty in securing his position."

"I'm afraid your appearance in the _Phycological Quarterly_ was better
deserved," said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eye from the
microscope she was using at a table just opposite to Clem's.

But this demands explanation, and I must go back to the time of which
Jack and I spoke--when we used to go sketching together.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE "HOUSEHOLD ALBUM"--SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--A NEW
SPECIES?--JACK'S BARGAIN--THEORIES.

Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at
drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a
scrapbook, or "Household Album," as it was called, into which she pasted
such of her children's original drawings as were held good enough for
the honour; the