rd to-day. But he's still got his arm all right."

"Good for him!" said Madam heartily; then, recalling the business in
hand, she added peevishly: "Well, stop talking now and explain these
papers."

Quin went over them several times with great patience, and then held the
ink-well while she tremblingly signed her name.

"Kinder awkward doing things on your back," he said sympathetically, as
she sank back exhausted.

"Awkward? It's torture. The cast is bad enough in itself; but having to
lie in one position like this makes me sore all over."

"You don't have to tell me," said Quin, easing up the bed-clothes with
quite a professional air; "I was six months on my back. But there's no
sense in keeping you like this. Why don't they rig you up a pulley, so's
you can change the position of your body without disturbing your leg?"

"How do you mean?"

"Like this," said Quin, taking a paper-knife and a couple of spoons from
the table and demonstrating his point.

Madam listened with close attention, and so absorbed were she and Quin
that neither of them were conscious of Miss Isobel's entrance until they
heard her feeble protest:

"I would not dare try anything like that without consulting Dr. Rawlins."

"Nobody wants you to dare anything," flared out her mother. "What the boy
says sounds sensible. He says he has fixed them for the soldiers at the
hospital. I want him to fix one for me."

"When shall I come?" Quin asked.

"Come nothing. You'll stay and do it now. Telephone the factory that I am
keeping you here for the morning. Isobel, order him whatever he needs.
And now get out of here, both of you; I want to take a nap."

Thus it was that, an hour later, the new colored butler was carrying the
papers back to Bartlett & Bangs's, and Mr. Randolph's new secretary was
sawing wood in Madam Bartlett's cellar. It was a humble beginning, but he
whistled jubilantly as he worked. Already he saw himself climbing, by
brilliant and spectacular deeds, to a dazzling pinnacle of security in
the family's esteem.

CHAPTER 11

Madam Bartlett's accident had far-reaching results. For fifty years her
firm hand had brooked no slightest interference with the family
steering-wheel, and now that it was removed the household machinery came
to a standstill. She who had "ridden the whirlwind and directed the
storm" now found herself ignominiously laid low. Instead of rising with
the dawn, primed for b