to send him out of
his mind."

"I wonder if it could have done that," remarked Thrush, in a tone of
serious speculation which he was instantly called upon to explain.

"What are you keeping back?" cried Lettice, the first to see that he had
been keeping something all this time.

"Only something he'd kept back from them," replied Thrush, with just a
little less than his usual aplomb. "It was a surprise he sprang on them
after waking; it will probably surprise you still more, Mr. Upton. You
may not believe it. I'm not certain that I do myself. In the morning he
had spoken of the Australian voyage as though you'd opposed it, but
withdrawn your opposition--one moment, if you don't mind! In the evening
he suddenly explained that he was actually sailing in the _Seringapatam,_
that his baggage was already on board, and he must get aboard himself that
night!"

"I don't believe it, Thrush."

"No more do I, father, for a single instant. Tony, of all people!"

Thrush looked from one to the other with a somewhat disingenuous eye. "I
don't say I altogether accept it myself; that's why I kept it to the end,"
he explained. "But we must balance the possibilities against the
improbabilities, never losing sight of the one incontestable fact that the
boy has undoubtedly disappeared. And here's a man, a well-known man, who
makes no secret of the fact that he found him wandering in the Park, in
the early morning, breathless and dazed, and drove him home to his own
house, where the boy spent the day; they took a hansom, the doctor tells
me, than which no statement is more quickly and easily checked. Are we to
believe this apparently unimpeachable and disinterested witness, or are we
not? He was most explicit about everything, offering to show me exactly
where he found the boy, and never the least bit vague or unsatisfactory in
any way. If you are prepared to believe him, if only for the sake of
argument, you may care to hear Dr. Baumgartner's theory as to what has
happened."

Lettice shook her head in scorn, but Mr. Upton observed, "Well, we may as
well hear what the fellow had to say to you; we must be grateful to him
for taking pity on our boy, and he was the last who saw him; he may have
seen something that we shouldn't guess."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Eugene Thrush; "he saw, or at any rate he now thinks
he saw, enough to build up a pretty definite theory on the foundation of
fact supplied by me. He didn't know the boy