pt some other means of making himself and everybody about
him extremely busy. He took a fancy for yachting, and got himself
diligently instructed in an art which, of all arts, must be absorbed
with the mother's milk, taken with the three R's and followed with
enthusiastic devotion. In Mr. Straker every qualification for
seamanship was lacking save enthusiasm, but as he himself never
discovered this fact, his _amour propre_ did not suffer, and his
companions were partly relieved of the burden of his entertainment.
Presently he made up his mind that it was time for him to see Jimmy.
His nose, trained for scenting news, led him inevitably to the chief
actor in the unusual drama which had indirectly involved his own
fortunes, and he saw no reason why he should not follow it at once.

"You'd better wait a while," cautioned Doctor Thayer. "That young man
pumped his heart dry as a seed-pod, and got some fever germs on top of
that. He isn't fit to stand the third degree just yet."

"I'm not going to give him any third degree, not a bit of it. 'Hero!
Saved a Princess!' and all that. That's what's coming to him as soon
as the newspapers get hold of it. But I want to know how he did it,
and what he did it for. Tell him to buck up."

Jimmy did buck up, though Mr. Straker's message still remains to be
delivered. He gathered his forces and exhibited such recuperative
abilities as to astonish the old red house and all Ilion. Doctor
Thayer and each of his nurses in turn unconsciously assumed credit for
the good work, and Sallie Kingsbury took a good share of pride in his
satisfactory recovery.

"Two aigs regular," she would say, with all a housekeeper's glory in
her guests' enjoyment of food.

There was enough credit to go round, indeed, and Jimmy presently became
the animated and interesting center of the family. He might have been
a new baby and his bedroom the sacred nursery. He was being spoiled
every hour of the day.

"Did he have a good night?" Agatha would anxiously inquire of Mr. Hand.

"Can't tell which is night; he sleeps all the time," would be the tenor
of Mr. Hand's reply. Or Sallie would ask, as if her fate depended on
the answer, "Did he eat that nice piece er chicken, Aunt Susan?" And
Mrs. Stoddard would say, "Eat it! It disappeared so quick I thought
he'd choke. Wanted three more just like it, but I told him that
invalids were like puppy-dogs--could only have one meal a day."

"Well, how'd he t