."

Juliet's father and Mrs. Dingley left on an early evening train, and only
the three younger guests remained when Juliet came downstairs after
putting her boy to bed. She set about gathering up the toys scattered over
the floor, and Barnes helped her. In the midst of this labour, during
which they all made merry with some of the more elaborate mechanical
affairs, Juliet suddenly said "What's that?" and went to the bottom of the
stairs.

"Let me go," offered Anthony. "He's probably too excited to get to sleep
easily after all this dissipation.--Hullo!--he's crowing with the rooster
yet."

But Juliet went up, and he followed her, saying from the landing to his
guests, "Excuse me for a little. I'll get the boy quiet, and let his
mother come down. I've a fine talent for that sort of thing. That rooster
will have to be given some soothing syrup--he's too lively a fowl."

"I never saw a man fonder of his youngster than Tony," Carey observed.

"The child is a particularly fine specimen," the doctor said. "I think I
never saw a more ideal development than he shows."

He began to tell an incident in which little Tony had been involved, when
he was interrupted.

"Barnes!"--called Anthony's voice from the top of the stairs. "Come up
here, please."

There was something in the imperative quality of this summons which made
the doctor run up the stairs, two at a time. Judith and Wayne listened.
The rooster could still be heard crowing, faintly but distinctly.

"Perhaps he's grown too excited over it," Judith suggested. "They ought to
take it away."

Carey went to the bottom of the stairs and listened. There were rapid
movements overhead. The doctor's voice could be heard giving directions
through which sounded the steady crowing of the toy. "Hold him so--now
move him that way as I thump--now the other----"

Carey turned pale. "He's got that rooster in his throat," he said
solemnly. The rooster was nearly life-size, but the incongruity of this
suggestion did not strike him. Judith hastily rose from her chair and went
to him.

"Had we better go up?" he whispered.

"Heavens--no!" Judith clutched his arm. "We couldn't do any good. The
doctor's there. Such things make me ill. They ought not to have let him
have the toy to take to bed with him. How could it get into his throat?
Perhaps they are making it crow to divert him. Perhaps he's hurt himself
somehow."

"He's got the crow part of that thing in his throat," Carey