your rooms,"
and she led him with pride into a capital back apartment with a large
window, in fact an old Tudor one which the builder had produced
somewhere, together with the panelling on the walls.

"That's your study," she said, "bookshelves and all complete. Now,
follow me," and she took him upstairs to a really charming bedroom.

"But," said Godfrey, surveying these splendours, "this must be the best
room in the house. Where do you sleep?"

"Oh! at the back there, my dear. You see, I am accustomed to a small
chamber and shouldn't be happy in this big one. Besides, you are going
to pay me rent and must be accommodated. And now come down to your
dinner."

A very good dinner it was, cooked by the policeman's wife, which Mrs.
Parsons insisted on serving, as she would not sit at the table with
him. In short, Godfrey found himself in clover, a circumstance that
filled him with some sadness. Why, he wondered, should he always be
made so miserable at home and so happy when he was away? Then he
remembered that famous line about the man who throughout life ever
found his warmest welcome at an inn, and perceived that it hid much
philosophy. Frequently enough homes are not what fond fancy paints
them, while in the bosom of strangers there is much kindliness.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INTERVENING YEARS

Now we may omit a great deal from Godfrey's youthful career. Within a
few days he received a letter from his father forwarded to him from the
hotel, that was even more unpleasant than the majority of the paternal
epistles to which he was accustomed. Mr. Knight, probably from honest
conviction and a misreading of the facts of life, was one of those
persons who are called Pacifists. Although he never carried out the
doctrine in his own small affairs, he believed that nations were
enjoined by divine decree to turn the other cheek and indeed every
portion of their corporate frame to the smiter, and that by so doing,
in some mysterious way, they would attain to profound peace and
felicity. Consequently he hated armies, especially as these involved
taxation, and loathed the trade of soldiering, which he considered one
of licensed murder.

The decision of his son to adopt this career was therefore a bitter
blow to him, concerning which he expressed his feelings in the plainest
language, ending his epistle by intimating his strong conviction that
Godfrey, having taken the sword, was destined to perish by the sword.
Also he poin