could be
persuaded to interest himself in gardening... They discussed his
medicine, his meals, his digestion, and the great, impossible dream of
`taking him away,' `out of it all.' And every now and then Dr Heve
dropped some little hint as to the management of Darius.

The ticking parcel drew the discreet attention of the doctor. The
machine was one guaranteed to go in any position, and was much more
difficult to stop than to start.

"It's only an alarm," said Edwin, not without self-consciousness.

The doctor went, tripping neatly and optimistically, off towards his own
breakfast. He got up earlier than his horse.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

Darius was still in the garden when Edwin went to him. He had put on
his daily suit, and was leisurely digging in an uncultivated patch of
ground. He stuck the spade into the earth perpendicularly and deep, and
when he tried to prise it up and it would not yield because of a
concealed half-brick, he put his tongue between his teeth and then bit
his lower lip, controlling himself, determined to get the better of the
spade and the brick by persuasively humouring them. He took no notice
whatever of Edwin.

"I see you aren't losing any time," said Edwin, who felt as though he
were engaging in small-talk with a stranger.

"Are you?" Darius replied, without turning his head.

"I've just come up for a bit of breakfast. Everything's all right," he
said. He would have liked to add: "I was in the shop before
seven-thirty," but he was too proud.

After a pause, he ventured, essaying the casual--

"I say, father, I shall want the keys of the desk, and all that."

"Keys o' th' desk!" Darius muttered, leaning on the spade, as though
demanding in stupefaction, "What on earth can you want the keys for?"

"Well--" Edwin stammered.

But the proposition was too obvious to be denied. Darius left the spade
to stand up by itself, and stared.

"Got 'em in your pocket?" Edwin inquired.

Slowly Darius drew forth a heavy, glittering bunch of keys, one of the
chief insignia of his dominion, and began to fumble at it.

"You needn't take any of them off. I expect I know which is which,"
said Edwin, holding out his hand.

Darius hesitated, and then yielded up the bunch.

"Thanks," said Edwin lightly.

But the old man's reluctance to perform this simple and absolutely
necessary act of surrender, the old man's air of havi