-only he takes such a lot of showing, poor old chap!"

"But when do you think he'll--do the right thing?"

"Oh, as soon as I see him again."

"Yes; but when _will_ you see him again?"

"That's more than I can say. He's away just now--in China, or Peru, or
somewhere."

"Horace! Then he won't be back for months and months!"

"Oh yes, he will. He can do the whole trip, _aller et retour_, you know,
in a few hours. He's an active old beggar for his age. In the meantime,
dearest, the chief thing is to keep up your father's spirits. So I think
I'd better---- I was just telling Sylvia, Mrs. Futvoye," he said, as
that lady re-entered the room, "that I should like to see the Professor
at once."

"It's quite, _quite_ impossible!" was the nervous reply. "He's in such a
state that he's unable to see any one. You don't know how fractious gout
makes him!"

"Dear Mrs. Futvoye," said Horace, "believe me, I know more than you
suppose."

"Yes, mother, dear," put in Sylvia, "he knows everything--_really_
everything. And perhaps it might do dad good to see him."

Mrs. Futvoye sank helplessly down on a settee. "Oh, dear me!" she said.
"I don't know _what_ to say. I really don't. If you had seen him plunge
at the mere suggestion of a doctor!"

Privately, though naturally he could not say so, Horace thought a vet.
might be more appropriate, but eventually he persuaded Mrs. Futvoye to
conduct him to her husband's study.

"Anthony, love," she said, as she knocked gently at the door, "I've
brought Horace Ventimore to see you for a few moments, if he may."

It seemed from the sounds of furious snorting and stamping within, that
the Professor resented this intrusion on his privacy. "My dear Anthony,"
said his devoted wife, as she unlocked the door and turned the key on
the inside after admitting Horace, "try to be calm. Think of the
servants downstairs. Horace is _so_ anxious to help."

As for Ventimore, he was speechless--so inexpressibly shocked was he by
the alteration in the Professor's appearance. He had never seen a mule
in sorrier condition or in so vicious a temper. Most of the lighter
furniture had been already reduced to matchwood; the glass doors of the
bookcase were starred or shivered; precious Egyptian pottery and glass
were strewn in fragments on the carpets, and even the mummy, though it
still smiled with the same enigmatic cheerfulness, seemed to have
suffered severely from the Professorial hoofs.

Horace instinc