e brightest of the party. That,
however, was usually when Lettice drew him out in the absence of the two
athletes; he was another creature then, excitable, hilarious, and more
capable of taking the busy man out of himself than any of his other
children. But Lettice overdid matters; she made far too much of the boy
and his complaint, and was inclined to encourage him in random remedies.
Cigarettes at his age, even if said to be cigarettes for asthma, suggested
a juvenile pose to the man who had never studied that disorder. The
specialist in London seemed another mistake on the part of that managing
Lettice, who had quite assumed the family lead of late. And altogether
Mr. Upton, though he saw the matter from a different point of view, was
not far from agreeing with his eldest son about his youngest.

And what chance was there for a boy whose own father thought he posed,
whose brothers considered him a bit of a malingerer, and his schoolfellows
"a conscientious ass," while his sister spoilt him for un enfant
incompris? You may say it would have taken a miracle to make an ordinary
decent fellow of him. Well, it was a night of strange happenings to the
boy and his people; perhaps it was the one authentic type of miracle that
capped all in the morning.

The father had gone to bed at midnight, after an extra allowance of
whisky-and-water to take the extra worry off his mind; it did so for a few
hours only to stretch him tragically awake in the early morning. The
birds were singing down in Leicestershire as in Hyde Park. The morning
sun was slanting over town and country, and the father's thoughts were
with his tiresome son in town. Suddenly a shrill cry came from the
adjoining room.

In a trice the wakeful man was at his sick wife's side, supporting her in
bed as she sat up wildly staring, trembling in his arms.

"Tony!" she gasped. "My Tony!"

"I was just thinking of him!" he cried. "What about him, dear?"

"I saw him," she quavered. "I saw him plainer than I see you now. And I'm
almost positive I heard--a shot!"

A GRIM SAMARITAN

Though he afterwards remembered a shout as well, it actually was the sound
of a shot that brought the boy to his senses in Hyde Park. He opened his
eyes on a dazzle of broad daylight and sparkling grass. The air was
strangely keen for the amount of sunshine, the sunshine curiously
rarefied, and the grass swept grey where it did not sparkle.

Pocket's first sensati