es did not seem to be in
the habit of lying. After all, the medicine could not hurt him. His
nurse was at a little distance gazing absently at the sea. I sat down
on a bench, and dropped a few of the pellets into his palm. He ate
them seriously, and then turned around and backed--after the well-known
appealing fashion of childhood--against my knees. I understood the
movement--although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I
raised him to my lap--with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged
handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort--where he sat silently
for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him.

"Wouldn't you like to go and play with those children?" I asked,
pointing to a group of noisy sand levelers not far away.

"No!" After a pause, "You wouldn't neither."

"Why?"

"Hediks."

"But," I said, "perhaps if you went and played with them and ran up and
down as they do, you wouldn't have headache."

Johnnyboy did not answer for a moment; then there was a perceptible
gentle movement of his small frame. I confess I felt brutally like
Belcher. He was getting down.

Once down he faced me, lifted his frank eyes, said, "Do way and play
den," smoothed down his smuggler frock, and rejoined his nurse.

But although Johnnyboy afterwards forgave my moral defection, he did not
seem to have forgotten my practical medical ministration, and our brief
interview had a surprising result. From that moment he confounded his
parents and doctors by resolutely and positively refusing to take any
more of their pills, tonics, or drops. Whether from a sense of
loyalty to me, or whether he was not yet convinced of the efficacy of
homoeopathy, he did not suggest a substitute, declare his preferences,
or even give his reasons, but firmly and peremptorily declined his
present treatment. And, to everybody's astonishment, he did not seem a
bit the worse for it.

Still he was not strong, and his continual aversion to childish sports
and youthful exercise provoked the easy criticism of that large part
of humanity who are ready to confound cause and effect, and such brief
moments as the Sluysdaels could spare him from their fashionable duties
were made miserable to them by gratuitous suggestions and plans for
their child's improvement. It was noticeable, however, that few of them
were ever offered to Johnnyboy personally. He had a singularly direct
way of dealing with them, and a precision of statement that was