ls with
absolute accuracy--"well, he didn't say he did, and he didn't say he
didn't."

"Didn't he thank the boys?"

"No'm."

"Didn't he even thank you?"

"No'm."

"Why, that's queer," she said. "He's always so polite. He SEEMED to be
having a good time, didn't he, Sam?"

"Ma'am?"

"Didn't Georgie seem to be enjoying himself?"

This question, apparently so simple, was not answered with promptness.
Sam looked at his mother in a puzzled way, and then he found it
necessary to rub each of his shins in turn with the palm of his right
hand.

"I stumbled," he said apologetically. "I stumbled on the cellar steps."

"Did you hurt yourself?" she asked quickly.

"No'm; but I guess maybe I better rub some arnica--"

"I'll get it," she said. "Come up to your father's bathroom, Sam. Does
it hurt much?"

"No'm," he answered truthfully, "it hardly hurts at all."

And having followed her to the bathroom, he insisted, with unusual
gentleness, that he be left to apply the arnica to the alleged injuries
himself. He was so persuasive that she yielded, and descended to the
library, where she found her husband once more at home after his day's
work.

"Well?" he said. "Did Georgie show up, and were they decent to him?"

"Oh, yes; it's all right. Sam and Penrod were good as gold. I saw them
being actually cordial to him."

"That's well," Mr. Williams said, settling into a chair with his paper.
"I was a little apprehensive, but I suppose I was mistaken. I walked
home, and just now, as I passed Mrs. Bassett's, I saw Doctor Venny's
car in front, and that barber from the corner shop on Second Street was
going in the door. I couldn't think what a widow would need a barber
and a doctor for--especially at the same time. I couldn't think what
Georgie'd need such a combination for either, and then I got afraid that
maybe--"

Mrs. Williams laughed. "Oh, no; it hasn't anything to do with his having
been over here. I'm sure they were very nice to him."

"Well, I'm glad of that."

"Yes, indeed--" Mrs. Williams began, when Fanny appeared, summoning her
to the telephone.

It is pathetically true that Mrs. Williams went to the telephone humming
a little song. She was detained at the instrument not more than five
minutes; then she made a plunging return into the library, a blanched
and stricken woman. She made strange, sinister gestures at her husband.

He sprang up, miserably prophetic. "Mrs. Bassett?"

"Go to the telephone," Mr