he said. "Thanks awfully!"

Against its will the hard old mouth relaxed. "There, boy, there! What an
infant you are! Sit down and have it for goodness' sake! It'll be
dinner-time before you've done."

"You've had yours?" said Piers.

"Oh, yes--yes!" Irritation made itself heard again in Sir Beverley's
voice; he freed himself from his grandson's hold, though not urgently.
"I'm not so keen on your precious tea," he said, seating himself again.
"It's only young milksops like you that have made it fashionable. When I
was young--"

"Hullo!" broke in Piers. He had picked up the cup of tea and was sniffing
it suspiciously. "You've been doctoring this!" he said.

"You drink it!" ordered Sir Beverley peremptorily. "I'm not going to
have you laid up with rheumatic fever if I know it. Drink it, Piers! Do
you hear?"

Piers looked for a moment as if he were on the verge of rebellion, then
abruptly he raised the cup to his lips and drained it. He set it down
with a shudder of distaste.

"You might have let me have it separately," he remarked. "Tea and brandy
don't blend well. I shall sleep like a hog after this. Besides, I
shouldn't have had rheumatic fever. It's not my way. Anything in the
paper to-night?"

"Yes," said Sir Beverley disgustedly. "There's that prize-fight
business."

"What's that?" Piers looked up with quick interest.

"Surely you saw it!" returned Sir Beverley. "That fellow
Adderley--killed his man in a wrestling-match. A good many people said
it was done by a foul."

"Adderley!" repeated Piers. "I know him. He gave me some quite useful
tips once. What happened? It's the first I've heard of it."

"Well, he's a murderer," said Sir Beverley. "And he deserves to be
hanged. He killed his man,--whether by a foul or not I can't say; but
anyway he meant to kill him. It's obvious on the face of it. But they
chose to bring it in manslaughter, and he's only got five years; while
some brainless fool must needs write an article a column and a half long
to protest against the disgraceful practice of permitting wrestling or
boxing matches, which are a survival of the Dark Ages and a perpetual
menace to our civilization! A survival of your grandmother! A nice set of
nincompoops the race will develop into if such fools as that get their
way! We're soft enough as it is, Heaven knows. Why couldn't they hang the
scoundrel as he deserved? That's the surest way of putting an end to
savagery. But to stop the sport altogeth