tion." He laid a hand on William's head and cold
shivers ran down William's spine. "'Be good, sweet child, and let who
will be clever,' as the poet says." There was murder in William's
heart.

At that minute Ethel entered.

"No," she snapped. "I sat next a man who smelt of bad tobacco. I
_hate_ men who smoke bad tobacco."

Mr. Jones assumed an expression of intense piety.

"I may boast," he said sanctimoniously, "that I have never thus soiled
my lips with drink or smoke ..."

There was an approving murmur from the occupants of the drawing-room.

William had met his father in the passage outside the drawing-room.
Mr. Brown was wearing a hunted expression.

"Can I go into the drawing-room?" he said bitterly, "or is he bleating
away in there?"

They listened. From the drawing-room came the sound of a high-pitched
voice.

Mr. Brown groaned.

"Good Lord!" he moaned. "And I'm here for a _rest_ cure and he comes
bleating into every room in the house. Is the smoking-room safe? Does
he smoke?"

Mr. Percival Jones was feeling slightly troubled in his usually
peaceful conscience. He could honestly say that he had never smoked.
He could honestly say that he had never drank. But in his bedroom
reposed two bottles of brandy, purchased at the advice of an aunt "in
case of emergencies." In his bedroom also was a box of cigars that he
had bought for a cousin's birthday gift, but which his conscience had
finally forbidden to present. He decided to consign these two emblems
of vice to the waves that very evening.

Meanwhile William had returned to the hut and was composing a tale of
smugglers by the light of a candle. He was much intrigued by his
subject. He wrote fast in an illegible hand in great sloping lines,
his brows frowning, his tongue protruding from his mouth as it always
did in moments of mental strain.

His sympathies wavered between the smugglers and the representatives
of law and order. His orthography was the despair of his teachers.

_"'Ho,' sez Dick Savage,"_ he wrote. _"Ho! Gadzooks! Rol in the
bottles of beer up the beech. Fill your pockets with the baccy from
the bote. Quick, now! Gadzooks! Methinks we are observed!" He glared
round in the darkness. In less time than wot it takes to rite this he
was srounded by pleese-men and stood, proud and defiant, in the light
of there electrick torches wot they had wiped quick as litening from
their busums._

_"'Surrender!' cried one, holding a gun at his brai