?" Mr. Waddington
suggested.

Alfred held out his hands eagerly.

"Thank you very much," he said. "It is very kind of you. I am very
fond of this sort of picture."

Burton took Mr. Waddington by the arm and led him out into the
warehouse.

"Whose child is that?" the latter demanded curiously.

"Mine," Burton groaned. "Can you guess what has happened?"

Mr. Waddington looked puzzled.

"You remember the day I went down to Garden Green? You gave me two
beans to give to Ellen and the child. It was before we knew that their
action was not permanent."

"I remember quite well," Mr. Waddington confessed.

"You remember I told you that Ellen threw them both into the street? A
man who was wheeling a fruit barrow picked up one. I told you about
that?"

"Yes!"

"This child picked up the other," Burton declared, solemnly.

Mr. Waddington stared at him blankly. "You don't mean to tell me," he
said, "that this is the ill-dressed, unwashed, unmannerly little brat
whom your wife brought into the office one day, and who turned the ink
bottles upside down and rubbed the gum on his hands?"

"This is the child," Burton admitted.

"God bless my soul!" Mr. Waddington muttered.

They sat down together on the top of a case. Neither of them found
words easy.

"He's taken to drawing," Burton continued slowly, "hates the life at
home, goes out for walks with the schoolmaster. He's got a list of
books to read--classics every one of them."

"Poor little fellow!" Mr. Waddington said to himself. "And to think
that in three weeks or a month--"

"And in the meantime," Burton interrupted, "here he is on my hands.
He's run away from home--as I did. I don't wonder at it. What do you
advise me to do, Mr. Waddington?"

"What can you do?" Mr. Waddington replied. "You must keep him until--"

"Upon children," Burton said thoughtfully, "the effect may be more
lasting. No news, I suppose, of the tree?"

Mr. Waddington shook his head sorrowfully. "I've had a private
detective now working ever since that day," he declared. "The man
thinks me, of course, a sort of lunatic, but I have made it worth his
while to find it. I should think that every child in the neighborhood
has been interviewed. What about the novel?"

"Come back from the publishers," Burton replied. "I have sent it away
to some one else."

Mr. Waddington looked at him compassionately.

"You were relying upon that, were you not?"

"Entirely," Burton admitted. "If I don