first sharp touch of frost, when he heard the sound of hoofs and
saw Peter ride up to the door.

'It's an extraordinary thing,' he said to himself as he saw his friend
dismount, 'Peter always seems to come when you want him. I believe he
has got some sort of instinct which tells him when his friends are down
on their luck!'

Peter would, of course, fetch the medicine from upstairs, and the
pocket-handkerchiefs. Toffy wondered if he had ever felt ill in his
life, and thought to himself, gazing without envy at the neat, athletic
figure on the horse, what a good fellow he was. He crept back to the
sofa again, and extending his thin hand to Peter as he entered, said,
'You see here the wreck of my former self! Sit down, Peter, and ring
for tea; there isn't the smallest chance of your getting any!'

'Why didn't you come to Bowshott, you ass, if you are ill?' said Peter
sternly. 'You will kill yourself some day coming down to this
half-warmed barn in the winter-time.'

'It isn't half warmed,' said Toffy. 'I wish it were! This room is all
right, isn't it? I aired another sofa by sleeping on it last night.'

'What on earth for?' demanded Peter, still in a tone of remonstrance.
Toffy had been his fag at Eton, and Peter had got into the habit of
taking care of him. He knew his friend's constitution better than most
people did, and he expended much affection upon him, and endeavoured
without any success to make him take care of himself. 'Why didn't you
sleep in your bed like a Christian?' he demanded sternly. 'You will
kill yourself if you go on playing the fool with your health!'

'The sheets seemed a bit damp in my bed, I thought,' said Toffy simply.

'Then why didn't your idiot of a housekeeper air them?'

'The duty of airing sheets is invested in the person of one Lydia, the
niece of the above-mentioned housekeeper,' said Toffy. 'I asked her in
the morning if my sheets had been aired, and she said that they had
not. She further explained that she had taken the precaution of
feeling them, and that they had not seemed very wet!'

'Oh, hang Mrs. Avory!' said Peter inwardly. 'Why has not Toffy got a
good wife to look after him? Look here,' he said decisively, 'I am
going to sleep over here to-night, and see that you go to bed, and I'm
going to get your sheets now and warm 'em.'

'You 'll get a beastly dinner if you stay,' said Toffy through his nose.

Peter brought the sheets down in a bundle, and placing