ifle his sobs.

His self-restraint made his uncle feel more uncomfortable. He sat down
by his bed and lifted him out bodily upon his knees, and he tried to
soothe him as a woman might.

'I declare, if you were a little older you and I would go off on a tour
round the world and search for this runaway father of yours.'

This idea was a risky one to propose, but he felt desperate at the
sight of the child's grief.

Bobby raised his eyes for the first time. The tears did not hide the
dawn of hope springing up in them.

'I'm old enough,' he said, choking down a sob; 'please take me.'

'It wouldn't do, and we might miss him; he might arrive after you had
gone.'

'Me and Nobbles could go and look for him our own selves,' Bobby said
very thoughtfully. 'We would just ask and ask till they told us where
he was.'

His uncle began to feel uneasy. 'No, that's quite the wrong way about.
He must come to you, not you go to him.'

'But,' said Bobby pitifully, 'he never comes, and I'm tireder and
tireder of waiting.'

'You go to sleep, and perhaps you'll dream where your father is.
Dreams are rummy things, and Nobbles is wanting his sleep, I know.'

Bobby was deposited in bed with his beloved stick, and his eyelids
began to droop at once. In a minute or two, worn out with his
excitement and consequent depression, he was fast asleep.

His uncle picked up his masquerading attire and left the room
muttering, 'I never will play the fool again; it doesn't pay.'

A day or two after this his Uncle Mortimer departed. Bobby was very
unhappy at losing him, for uncle and nephew were close friends, and not
a day passed without their spending some of it together. The uncle
promised to look for Bobby's father and send him to him as quickly as
possible, and the child's hopes rose high, and he firmly believed that
his father's return home would be hastened.

Upon the morning that his uncle left, Bobby's grandmother called him to
her when she came into the nursery for her usual visit.

'I want to speak to you,' she said, putting on her gold spectacles and
sitting down in Nurse's easy chair.

Bobby stood before her, his hands clasped behind his back.

'Are you not happy with us?' was the question put to him next, a little
sharply.

'Yes, gran'ma.'

'Who has been talking to you about your father?'

Bobby was silent.

'Answer me, child.'

'I dunno--Master Mortimer.'

'Do you mean your Uncle Mortimer? He has only just