and all sorts of heathen
Johnnies wrestling and fighting. Then the other fellows got scared and
went back to their desks, and I was doing `Ajax defying the lightning'
in fine style, when Young came sneaking in and found me at it. He told
the boss, and the boss sent for me, and jawed for a quarter of an hour.
`Willing to make excuses for youthful spirits, but must enforce
discipline. Repeated complaints. Friend of your uncle. Very sorry.
Give you another chance.' You know the kind of thing."

"Bar-ney!" cried the four sisters in chorus. But Barney only laughed
and shrugged his shoulders.

"What's the odds? I'm sick of the whole show, anyway. If he thinks I
am going to spend my life making out policies he is jolly well mistaken.
It's bad enough as it is; I should go cracked if I couldn't have a
little fun."

The lines came back to his forehead as he spoke, and Philippa regarded
him in pained self-reproach. This bright, adventurous spirit was never
intended by nature to be chained to an office desk. No wonder that he
chafed at confinement, and occasionally broke the bounds. If
circumstances would have allowed it, he would have made a resourceful
middy, a soldier who would have done good work for his country; but
circumstances had not allowed it, and here once more was the round peg
in the square hole, here once more the inevitable failure and
disappointment. Surely there is no greater wrong that can be done to a
young man, no surer way of driving him into temptation, than to set him
a lifelong task which he despises and abhors. Philippa determined to
consult the Hermit, who was by this time a regular Sunday-night visitor
at the flat, and whose understanding of the boy's nature made him a more
valuable adviser than the staid elder brother. Perhaps Mr Neil might be
able to suggest a way out of the difficulty.

For the next few days Theo and Madge took their walks abroad together,
and when at home remained shut up in the drawing-room together, whence
came peals of mysterious laughter. Sheets of cardboard were smuggled to
and fro, and finally taken out of the house and never brought back. In
their place, however, appeared two bright half-sovereigns, displayed
with huge pride on Madge's outstretched palm.

"First fruits!" she cried. "The foundations of a mighty fortune! I
have set up in the advertising business, my dears, and am very well
satisfied with my beginning. Oh, I am going to explain; just give