at hand. At last, at eight o'clock, there was a peal of the servants'
bell, and the footman who answered it turned round to the anxious
crowd: 'Mr. Gregory! He just asked if the child was come home, and
went off like lightning.'

'The villain! He's lost him!' shrieked nurse, with a wild scream. 'Run
after him, James! Catch him up!' suggested the butler at the same
moment. 'Make him tell where he saw him last!'

James was not a genius, but the hall boy, an alert young fellow, had
already dashed down the steps in pursuit, and came up with the valet so
as to delay him till the other servants stood round, and Gregorio
turned back with them, pale, breathless, evidently terribly dismayed
and unwilling to face his master, who stood at the top of the steps,
white with alarm and wrath.

'Sir,' cried Gregorio, with a stammering of mixed languages, 'I have
been searching everywhere! I was going to give notice to the police.
Je ferai tout! Je le trouverai.'

'Where did you lose him?' demanded Mr. Egremont in a hoarse voice, such
as Nuttie had never heard.

'In the Park, near the bridge over the Serpentine. I was speaking for
a few moments to a friend. Bah! Il etait parti. Mais je le
trouverai. Parker, he seeks too. Fear not, sir, I shall find him.'

'Find him, you scoundrel, or never dare to see me again! I've borne
with your insolences long, and now you've brought them to a height. Go,
I say, find my boy!' exclaimed Mr. Egremont, with a fierce oath and
passionate gesture, and Gregorio vanished again.

'Bring the carriage--no, call a cab;' commanded Mr. Egremont, snatching
up his hat. 'Who is this Parker?'

The servants hesitated, but the butler said he believed the man to be a
friend of Gregorio's employed at one of the clubs. Nuttie meanwhile
begging her father not to go without her, flew upstairs to put on her
hat, and coming down at full speed found that Mr. Dutton, passing by
and seeing the open door and the terrified servants on the steps, had
turned in to ask what was the matter, and was hearing in no measured
terms from Mr. Egremont how the child had been taken away from his
nurse and lost in the Park while that scamp Gregorio was chattering to
some good-for-nothing friend.

To Nuttie's great relief, Mr. Dutton offered to go with the father to
assist in the search, and the coachman, far too anxious and excited to
let his master go without him in a cab, contrived to bring up the
carriage. Some o