ook so solemn, old Jack, it's all perfectly innocent! You can
trust me to do nothing you would disapprove."

"I believe I can. You are a madcap, Margot, but you are a good girl.
I'm not afraid of you, but I imagine that the editor will be a match for
a dozen youngsters like you and Ron, and will soon see through your
little scheme. However, I'll do what I can. In big offices holiday
arrangements have to be made a good while ahead, so it ought not to be
difficult to get the information you want. Now I must be off upstairs
to see the boys before they get into bed. Shall I see you again when I
come down?"

"No, indeed! I've played truant since half-past eleven, so I shall have
to hang about the end of the terrace until father appears, and go in
under his wing, to escape a scolding from Agnes. I had arranged to pay
calls with her this afternoon. I wonder how it is that my memory is so
dreadfully uncertain about things I don't want to do! Good-bye then,
Jack, and a hundred thanks. Posterity will thank you for your help."

Jack Martin laughed and shrugged his shoulders. He had a man's typical
disbelief in the ability of his wife's relatives.

CHAPTER FIVE.

AN EXPLOSION.

Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the
next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an
unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger.

"I can't understand what you are making such a fuss about. You'll have
to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would
come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one
o'clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly
verses. I'd be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day
long!" So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his
eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the
flame.

He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, "did not
understand." Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered
towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. "The Worker and the
Dreamer"--he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful
inner vision pictured the scene--the poet sitting idle on the hillside,
the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting
glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to
take shape in his brain.

"...And the worker