ve this he went to sea in a temper with a frigate and came back
laden with the treasure of half a dozen galleons, to find that his wife
had died at the birth of a son. He promised himself to settle down for
good; but the fog of London choked lungs used to soft airs; he heard the
call of the sun and was away again to seek adventure in the broiling
reaches of the Caribbean. A man of restless, wild spirit, breathing
inconsistencies incomprehensible to the conventions of Whitehall! And his
son had turned a Cromwellian, who, in poverty, sought refuge in America
when Charles II. came to the throne; and from him, in the vicissitudes of
five generations, the poor clergyman was descended.

Thus ran the tale in its completeness. The end of the ancestor's career
had been in keeping with its character and course. He had been spared
the slow decay of faculties in armchair reminiscence. He had gone down in
his ship without striking his colors, fighting the Spaniards one to
three. When Jack closed the cover on the last page tenderly and in
enraptured understanding, it was past midnight.

The spaciousness of the sea under clouds of battle smoke had melted into
the spaciousness of the desert under the Eternal Painter's canopy. Then
four walls of a bedroom in Madison Avenue materialized, shutting out the
horizon; a carpet in place of sand formed the floor; and in place of a
blanket roll was a canopied bed upon which a servant had laid out a suit
of pajamas. In the impulse of a desire to look into the face of the first
John Wingfield in the light of all he now knew, Jack went downstairs, and
in the silence of the house drank in the portrait again.

"You splendid old devil, you!" he breathed, understandingly. "How should
you like to start out delivering goods with me in the morning?"

XXVIII

JACK GETS A RAISE

The next morning Jack went down town with his father in the limousine.
About an hour later, after he had been introduced to the head of the
delivery division, he was on his way up town beside a driver of one of
the wagons on the Harlem route. He was in the uniform of the Wingfield
light cavalry, having obtained a cap with embroidered initials on the
front. The driver was like to burst from inward mirth, and Jack was
regarding the prospect with veritable juvenile zest.

At dinner that evening John Wingfield, Jr. narrated his experiences of
the day to John Wingfield, Sr. with the simplicity and verisimilitude
that alway