I do," Mr. Smith mumbled. "And he has
brains; doesn't get 'em from you two. Guess he gets 'em from me."

"Father! Please--_please_!" she said, in a terrified whisper. "Somebody
might hear."

"They're welcome. Mary . . . he handed me back my own quarter for my own
apples. No fool." He gave a grunt of laughter. "He said, 'Twelve times
twelve' like lightning--when he was only ten! . . . Last year he took
his own licking, though the Mack boy was in for it. . . . I'm going to
give him a pony."

After that he seemed to forget her and slept for a while. A day or two
later he forgot everything, even Johnny. The last person he remembered,
curiously enough, was Miss Lydia Sampson.

It was when he was dying that he said, suddenly opening those marvelous
eyes and smiling faintly: "Little wet hen! Damned game little party.
Stood right up to me. . . . Wish I'd married her thirteen years ago.
Then there'd have been no fuss about my grandson."

"_Grandson?_" said Doctor King, in a whisper to Mrs. Robertson. And she
whispered back, "He is wandering."

When Mary's husband arrived for the funeral and for the reading of the
will (in which there was nothing "handsome" for Johnny!) the doctor
told him of the new Mr. Smith's last words; and Mr. Robertson said,
hurriedly, "Delirious, of course."

"I suppose so," said Doctor King.

But when he walked home with Doctor Lavendar, after the funeral, he
said, "Have you any idea who Johnny Smith belongs to, Doctor Lavendar?"

"Miss Lydia," said Doctor Lavendar, promptly.

To which William King replied, admiringly, "I have never understood how
anybody _could_ look as innocent as you, and yet be so chock-full of
other people's sins! Wonder if his mother will ever claim him?"

"Wonder if Miss Lydia would give him up if she did?" Doctor Lavendar
said.

"She'd have to," William said.

"On the principle that a 'mother is a mother still, the holiest thing
alive'?" Doctor Lavendar quoted.

"On the principle of ownership," said William King. "As to a mother
being a 'holy thing,' I have never noticed that the mere process of
child-bearing produces sanctity."

"William," said Doctor Lavendar, "Mrs. Drayton would say you were
indelicate. Also, I believe you know that two and two make four?"

"I have a pretty good head for arithmetic," said William King, "but I
only added things up a day or two ago."

CHAPTER IV

AFTER Mr. Smith's death the Robertsons stayed on in Old Chester to cl