he other, facing slowly about and putting on his hat.
"I didn't see it in that light. Very well, Jack, I decline to fight
you."

"You apologise?"

"Certainly."

The little man held out a hand. "I might have known, Jemmy, you were
too good a fellow--" he began.

"Oh, stow away your pretty speeches and take back your hand. I can't
prevent your playing the fool with Meg's child; but if I had a decent
excuse, you may make up your mind I'd use it. As it is, the sight of
you annoys me. Good morning!"

He went out, slamming the door after him, and they heard him descend
the stairs and turn down the street.

"A day's peace," mused Captain Barker, "strikes me as more expensive
than a year's war. It has cost me my two dearest friends."

He strode up and down the room muttering angrily; then looked up and
said:

"Take me to Meg; I want to see her."

"And the child?"

"To be sure. I'd clean forgotten the child."

Dr. Beckerleg led the way downstairs. A pale sunshine touched the
edge of the pavement across the road, and while Captain Barker was
settling the bill, the doctor stepped across and picked a dice-box
out of the gutter.

"Luckily I found the dice, too; they were lying close together," said
he, as his companion came out. He turned the box round and appeared
to be reflecting; but next moment walked briskly into the bar and
returned the dice to the drawer, with a small fee.

"She is not much changed?" asked the Captain, as they moved down the
street arm in arm.

"Eh? You were saying? No, not changed. A beautiful face."

Though middle-aged and lined with trouble it was, as Dr. Beckerleg
said, a beautiful face that slept behind the dusty window above the
court where the sparrows chattered. From a chamber at the back of
the house the two men were met, as they climbed the stairs, by the
sound of an infant's wailing. Dr. Beckerleg went towards this, after
opening for the Captain the door of a room wherein no sound was at
all.

When, half an hour later, Captain Barker came out and closed this
door gently, Dr. Beckerleg, who waited on the landing, forbore to
look a second time at his face. Instead he stared fixedly at the
staircase wall and observed:

"I think it is time we turned our attention upon the child."

"Take me to him by all means."

Margaret's son was reclining, very red and angry, in the arms of
an old woman who attempted vainly to soothe him by tottering up
and down the room as f