on
either side of her, and on the table before her, a mug, which, without
doubt, contained gin-and-beer!

I waited to see no more. Enough to know that all the world was run amuck!
With a glad whoop, I sped after the others, and only drew up when I stood
on the threshold of the drawing-room.

Like the servants' hall, it was a large apartment, and, like it, was
bewildering in its colour and movement, to eyes accustomed to the grey
decorum of Mrs. Handsomebody's establishment.

Though it was summer, there was a fire on the hearth, which played with
changeful constancy on the vivid chintzes, silver candle-sticks, and many
mirrors of the room, but most of all, on the golden hair and satin tea-gown
of the lady in pink.

She was speaking in a loud, clear voice to Simon's father, who was leaning
against the mantelpiece smoking.

"Why the devil," she was saying, "should you smoke expensive cigars? Why
don't you smoke cigarettes as I do?"

She angrily puffed at one as she spoke, and threw herself back among the
black and gold cushions of the divan, where she was sitting. Her fair brow
cleared, however, as her glance rested on The Seraph.

"Adorable little toad!" she cried, drawing him to her side. "What is your
name?"

"Alexander," replied our youngest, "but they call me The Seraph. I'm not a
pampud pet."

This sent the lady into a gale of laughter. She hugged him closer and
turned to me.

"And what is your name, Sobersides?" she demanded.

"John," I replied, "and my father is David Curzon, and he is an engineer in
South America, but he's coming back to England some day, and, I expect then
we shall go to school. We just live with Mrs. Handsomebody."

As I talked, her expression changed. She leaned forward, searching my face
eagerly.

"Is it possible?" she said, in a tragic voice. "Is it possible? David
Curzon. His son. The very spit of him!" Abruptly she broke into gay
laughter, which, somehow, I did not quite like: and turning to her husband,
she said: "Do you remember Davy Curzon? He was such a silly old pet. Lor'!
I'd quite forgot him!"

"Lucky Davy," said the gentleman, smiling at me.

"And he was so ridiculously poor," she went on, "I remember he ruined
himself once to buy me a pair of cream-coloured ponies, and a lapis-lazuli
necklace. And I daresay he's _fat_ now!"

"He is not," I retorted stoutly. "He's thin. He's had the fever."

"Again?" she cried. "He had it when I knew him--badly too. Who did he