hcoming through the bedroom door,
but the last post of the evening produced another letter for Bertie, and
its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment which had already
dawned on her son.

"Dear Bertie," it ran; "I hope I haven't distracted your brain with
the spoof letters I've been sending in the name of a fictitious
Clotilde. You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody at
your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give any
one that opened them something exciting to read. The shock might do
them good.

"Yours,

"Clovis Sangrail."

Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It was
not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In a
chastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie's door.

"A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It's all been a stupid hoax. He wrote
those other letters. Why, where are you going?"

Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat.

"I'm going for a doctor to come and see if anything's the matter with
you. Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right mind could
have believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide and jewels.
You've been making enough noise to bring the house down for the last hour
or two."

"But what was I to think of those letters?" whimpered Mrs. Heasant.

"I should have known what to think of them," said Bertie; "if you choose
to excite yourself over other people's correspondence it's your own
fault. Anyhow, I'm going for a doctor."

It was Bertie's great opportunity, and he knew it. His mother was
conscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the story
got about. She was willing to pay hush-money.

"I'll never open your letters again," she promised. And Clovis has no
more devoted slave than Bertie Heasant.

THE SEVEN CREAM JUGS

"I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he has
become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money," observed Mrs. Peter
Pigeoncote regretfully to her husband.

"Well, we can hardly expect to," he replied, "seeing that we always
choked him off from coming to see us when he was a prospective nobody. I
don't think I've set eyes on him since he was a boy of twelve."

"There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his acquaintanceship,"
said Mrs. Peter. "With that notorious failing of his he was not the sort
of person one wanted in one's house."

"Well, t