r could get away from the frump--dash
it, she just took charge of us. And it was the same again in the
evening. By Jove, it was disgusting--really, that's the only word to
use--the way that woman assumed toward everybody the air of
expect-to-be-mistress-here-some-day-and-might-as-well-begin-now!

Once she did break away from us for fifteen minutes while she went up to
see how Jack was. She came back much relieved.

"He was _so_ glad to see me," she said, "and he kissed me twice. We had
such an interesting discussion about the _amoeba_."

"The _what_?" asked Frances.

"The _amoeba_--tiny animalcules, don't you know, that have the power of
changing their form and appearance. Jacky thinks that perhaps man, too,
in the process of time and evolution might scientifically acquire
this--"

"How silly!" laughed my darling. And I thought so too. Of course if a
man looked like himself once, he would _always_ look like himself. Any
fool knew that!

Later, the judge came to my room, accompanied by Wilkes with some
Heidelberg punch, _frappe_.

"Couldn't leave you out of this," he said genially; "besides, wanted to
toast your first night under the roof of Wolhurst!

"Hope they're making you comfortable," he went on. "Infernal shame,
Lightnut, that I've had to neglect you so; so absurdly busy, you
know--_you_ understand?"

I pretended to, for I knew he wanted me to _think_ that, but I had heard
the butler tell the frump that the judge was _reading_.

"Don't expect to retire at all," he continued; "and then there's my
promise to my poor boy--I _must_ keep that somehow; never failed on a
promise in my life--I mean, you know, about wearing his new pajamas." He
shook his head sadly.

"T' be sure!"--and I swallowed hard--Jove, but the very word, "pajamas,"
gave me cold marrows!

"And, my boy, I haven't forgotten my promise to _you_, either," he
continued, smiling kindly and replenishing my glass to the brim. "I'm
still going to have a word with Francis to-night--that is, if they ever
get back from that infernal dog-fight--I want to pave the way for you,
you know."

"Thanks awfully!" I murmured nervously.

Somehow, I felt mean--always hate to feel mean, dash it--felt almost
like a jolly cad, in fact. _Couldn't_ tell him how far Frances and I had
progressed already; he might take it out on her, you know. And _then_,
to find out that he didn't know she hadn't gone to the dog-fight after
all!

"Well," he sighed, "I will man