"You did not give him any encouragement, did you, Tom?" she cried sharply.

"Well, not—er—exactly," he said, looking away.

"Well, don't!" she exclaimed. "You know I have my heart set on having a French baby next."

"So you have," he said brightly. "I'll not forget it, my dear. As a matter of fact, I spoke to Rouquin, our foreign exchange manager, about it not long ago. He is quite French, my dear. He says there will be no trouble about it. It will be no trick at all to get a French baby. He says he already knows of a half-dozen actual descendants of the nobility, aged from one year up to ten, any one of which we can call our own by simply saying the word."

"He shall be called Richelieu. Dick for short," mused Mrs. Bingle.

"I thought we contemplated a girl," said he.

"It is always possible for us to change our minds, isn't it, Tom?"

"Certainly, my dear. We'll have a boy if you like. In a pinch, we can always change the gender at the last minute. Let's not give it another thought. I'll take it up with Rouquin the first time I'm in town. As for Swanson's sister's child—well, never mind. We sha'n't have it. He says its name is Ole at present but I suppose it could be called Richelieu if taken in time. Still that's neither here nor there. I've been thinking lately, my dear, that we ought to call our next boy Joseph—after his grand-uncle, don't you see. We owe that much to poor old Uncle Joe. Will you bear it in mind?"

"We COULD call the next one Josephine," she said.

He grinned. "Uncle Joe would turn over in his grave," said he.

That evening Mr. Force telephoned to Seawood.

"That you, Bingle?" came in rather muffled tones over the wire.

"Yes, this is Mr. Bingle."

"This is Force. We are sailing to-morrow for—"

"I can't hear you. Stand a little closer to the 'phone, please."

"I say we are sailing to-morrow for Europe. I'm standing close to it, Bingle. There's some one in the next booth. I can't yell, you know. I—"

"Where are you?"

"At the Plaza. I just wanted to tell you that I've fixed everything up with the detective agency. Not a word of that little matter will ever become public. Their lips have been sealed."

Mr. Bingle's heart swelled. "Do you mean that the matter is—er— permanently closed? Are you going to let me keep her?"

"Certainly NOT! What kind of a father do you think I am? Now I'll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to be particularly careful about that child while I'm away. Don't let anything happen to her. Take the best of care of her, Bingle. I shall hold you personally responsible. And see here, there's another point on which I want to be especially firm. I don't want her to be thrown with the other children any more than can be helped. I—What's that?"

"Nothing. Go on."

"Some of those kids of yours are not precisely what I would call thoroughbred. See what I mean? No reflection, of course, Bingle. I wouldn't say this if they were your own, understand, but—well, they're not, so that's all there is to it. I shall have to ask you to engage a special companion for Kathleen, and I have arranged with a Madame Dufresne to—"

"See here, Force, I—"

"—to call on you this week. She is an excellent woman, refined and a lady of very good family in France. She is a friend of Rouquin's, in the bank. He knew the family in Paris. I took the liberty of telling him that you wanted to engage a French LADY to act as companion to your eldest child. I trust you will see to it that Kathleen is not allowed to romp about with the rest of those—er—the other children. This Madame Dufresne will—What's that?"

Mr. Bingle had recovered his breath. His voice was high and shrill with indignation.

"You will oblige me, Force, by permitting me to run my household as I see fit. If this Madame What's-her-name comes out here to see me, I shall pack her off to town again so quick her head will swim. We have brought Kathleen up as if she was our own child, sir, and I don't care to have any suggestions from you, sir. What's more, I must say— although it's against the rules of the telephone company—you are a damned fine man to be giving advice to me about the raising of your child. You—"

"Sh! For heaven's sake, Bingle, don't shout like that! Be careful, man!"

"Well, you leave Kathleen to me, that's all I've got to say. She shall play with the rest of the children as much as she likes, Force. So far as we are concerned, she's no better than the rest of them, understand that, sir. She isn't going to be contaminated a darned bit more than she was before you discovered that she was yours. And, as for that, she isn't yours until I see fit to give her up. Understand that, too. Now, if—wait a minute! I'm still talking. Now, if you think you can give me any pointers on how to bring up children I want to say to you that you are barking up the wrong tree. Don't you dare to send that woman here, and don't you dare to dictate to me how—"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, Bingle," came Mr. Force's agitated voice through the transmitter. "For heaven's sake, don't fly off the handle like this. I—I thought I was acting for the best interests of every one. I was only trying to help you out in—"

"I don't need any help," said Mr. Bingle crisply. "Have you told your wife?"

"Yes, I have," said Force. "That's—that's why we are going abroad for a few months. She—"

"Mrs. Bingle was right, then. She usually is. What is her attitude?"

"Devilish bad, Bingle—devilish, that's all I can say. I can't talk to you over the telephone about it. I'll—I'll write you from Paris. I'm —I'm working with her, that's all I can do at present. I believe she'll come around all right in the end. I'm sure she will. I'll—I'll let you know."

"Says she won't have the brat in her house, is that it?" said Mr. Bingle, with a queer rasp in his voice.

"I can't talk to you over the telephone. Didn't you hear me say so a minute ago?"

"You can say yes or no, can't you?"

"She's pretty much upset over the business."

"Speak up! I can't hear you."

"I'll drop you a line in the morning. Now, Bingle, you will take good care of the child, won't you. She—"

"I shall take good care of all of them, Force."

"And now about this Madame Du—"

"She is out of the question, Force. Good night!"

"Just as you say, old man. I sha'n't insist if you are opposed to—"

"Good night!"

"But I will feel a great deal easier in my mind if she isn't allowed to come in contact with the rest—"

Mr. Bingle hung up the receiver.



CHAPTER XI

A TIMELY LESSON IN LOVE

The Forces returned from Europe late in February. They cut their visit short because Mr. Force's jubilant cablegram to Mr. Bingle drew from its recipient a reply so curt and effective that there could be no mistaking his stand in the matter of Kathleen.

Toward the end of the first week in February, Mr. Force cabled: "Everything smoothed out. Rejoice. Wife keen about K. Insists on having her with us over here. Send her over at once with Dufresne. Never was so happy in my life. Force."

The reply was: "Come and get her, but bring your wife with you. Bingle."

"I am not sure that I trust Force," said Mr. Bingle to his wife as they discussed the banker's message. "Like as not he wants to get the child over in Europe and leave her there with strangers until she grows up, or something of the sort. What proof have we that he has told his wife? How do we know that she is keen about Kathie? She never has been. As a matter of fact, she brags about her hatred for children. Openly says she despises 'em. Prefers her dogs and cats, and all such rubbish as that. No, sir, Mary; I don't pack Kathie off with a strange Frenchwoman, destined for heaven knows what, and that's all there is to it. The thing looks fishy to me. Maybe it's, a plot—a dark, cruel plot to get the child out of the country. If he wants me to believe that Mrs. Force is keen about Kathie, she'll have to say so herself, in so many words, and, blame me, Mary, I don't believe I'll let her say 'em by telegraph either."

"But he is the president of the bank, Thomas," said Mrs. Bingle, as if that were all that was necessary to put him above suspicion.

"I am not dealing with the president of the bank, my dear," said Mr. Bingle stiffly. "I am dealing with my next door neighbour, and I have a mighty poor opinion of him. The boy is waiting. I'll just write an answer to his cablegram and get it off at once."

The day after they landed in New York, Mr. and Mrs. Force paid a formal visit to the Bingle mansion. They came out from town by motor, arriving at four in the afternoon. Mr. Bingle was expecting them. They had telephoned, saying they could stay but a short time and made it quite clear that it wouldn't be necessary to serve tea. They were staying in town for a few days before going on to Florida.

At five o'clock they motored swiftly away from Seawood. The ordeal was over. Kathleen was to go to Mr. and Mrs. Force. The wife of a "man called Hinman" was to mother the child of Agnes Glenn.

It was to be very simple and easy for the Forces; like their kind, they left the hard part of the bargain to Mr. Bingle. He was to tell Kathleen of the great change that was soon to take place in her life. He was to tell the happy, loving little girl that she was no longer to call him daddy, that she was to go and live with the man she feared and disliked. That was the part of the bargain left to the one who loved her best of all and who would not have given her an instant's pain for all the world. He was to deliver her, with scant excuse or explanation, into the hands of strangers—cold, unfeeling strangers. It would be the same as saying to the child that he did not care for her any longer, that he did not love her, that he was willing to give her up to Mr. Force without so much as a pang of regret. For he could NOT tell her the truth. She was never to know about the carbolic acid and the days of starvation. She was only to know that Mr. Force was to be her daddy from this time forward and that Mr. Bingle could never be anything more to her than Uncle Tom.

But after he told her, he cried.... Still, they were not to take her away until the end of the week, and that was five days off.

An unsuspected astuteness in the character of Thomas Singleton Bingle reveals itself in the declaration, now to be made for the first time in this present history of the man: he never allowed his wards to look upon themselves as his own children. They were taught to call him daddy and to look upon him as a substitute supplied by God to take the place of a real father, and by the same token Mrs. Bingle became mother to the brood, but they were safe-guarded against the surprise and shock of future revelations—revelations that so frequently spoil the lives of those who have lived in happy ignorance. Mr. Bingle, gentle soul that he was, had the heart to look ahead in this pleasant game of his. He saw the cruelty of a too loving deception. He foresaw the desolating results of a too great faith in chance. So his children were taught to regard him in the light of a protector who was satisfied to have them feel that he was under obligations to them instead of the other way round. It was his joy to be called daddy, and in return for this simple tribute he lavished upon them all the love and tenderness of a true father and a great deal of the consideration that a child deserves, but seldom gets, from its own pre-occupied and self-satisfied parent.

Kathleen knew that she was not the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bingle. She had always known that she was the daughter of a Mr. and Mrs. Hinman, both deceased. In the case of Reginald—and, in a way, Harold also—there was some uncertainty. As the former advanced in years and characteristics, it became more and more apparent to Mr. Bingle that his fifth-born was not of Italian descent, despite the fact that the authorities at the Foundlings' Home had him down on the records as the offspring of a Mr. and Mrs. Vanesi, lost in one of the factory fires in the city of Brooklyn. Mr. Bingle was convinced, as time went on, that the tags on certain infants had been accidentally misplaced by careless attendants, and that Reginald's nick-name, bestowed by Frederick and Wilberforce in their frivolous wisdom, was not so far out of the way as it might have seemed if he had not been possessed of his own vague misgivings. They called him Abey. As for Harold, he was unmistakably Irish, although the hospital people declared that he was German to the core when Mr. and Mrs. Bingle went there to pick out a healthy Teuton to add to their collection. They were positive that they wanted a German baby; nothing else would do, they announced clearly and positively to the superintendent in charge of the maternity ward. The superintendent was most gracious about it. She said they could return little Fritz if he didn't come up to the mark in every particular. What more could a German fancier desire than a child whose name alone stood for all that one could possibly seek in Teutonic research? Fritz Bumbleburg:—that was the infant's name and his father's name before him. Surely Mr. Bingle wouldn't demand anything more German than that. Moreover, Fritz's mother was German- American and she had been the wife of Fritz's father for a matter of five years or more. Still, in spite of all this, Fritz (re-christened Harold while he was still too young to raise a voice in protest) was unmistakably Irish, or at least part Irish. It is also worthy of note that Mrs. Bumbleburg ran away with an Irish policeman some weeks after the infant Fritz's advent into the world, which would go to show that the mother, at any rate, had Celtic inclinations if nothing more.

Kathleen took it very hard at first. She was inconsolable until the desperate Bingle began to dilate upon the wonders of Florida. Miss Fairweather was called in to corroborate all that they had to say about the gorgeousness of that southern fairyland, and as a group they did very well when one stops to consider that not one of them had ever been south of Washington, D. C. The child cheered up a bit. She began to take some interest in the matter of dress. Following that, she revealed considerable enthusiasm over the prospect of going south in a private car with a personal maid of her own, and could have a change of frock twice a day for a week at a stretch, to say nothing of being allowed to eat in the public dining-car if it pleased her to do so. That thing of eating in the dining-car was a master-stroke on the part of Bingle. It was the greatest inducement he could have offered to the child in support of the claim that she ought to be the happiest creature on earth, going away with Mr. and Mrs. Force like this.

Frederick and Wilberforce openly declared—in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Bingle—that you bet they'd go in a minute if they had the chance to see the land where Melissa's pirates and smugglers did most of their plundering—an attitude that created an unhappy half-hour for Melissa later on in the day. Any one else but Melissa would have received her walking-papers.

The frocks, the personal maid, the prospect of the dining-car and the assurance that it wouldn't be necessary to call Mr. Force "daddy" until she became a little more accustomed to seeing him around, brought Kathleen to a proper way of thinking. She became quite eager to go!

"Well," said Mr. Bingle to his wife, after the storm, "I fancy we'd better make an appointment with Rouquin as soon as possible. I am really quite enthusiastic, my dear, over that idea of yours to have a cute little French baby. The sooner we get it the better, I say. It is going to be pretty lonesome for awhile. Somehow I hope we find one that cries a good deal. It would cheer us up considerably, I'm sure, if we had something like that to annoy us, especially at night. We shall probably lie awake anyhow."

Frederick was causing them no little anxiety. The boy wasn't eating well. He was beginning to look a bit peaked. Dr. Fiddler was puzzled. He could not discover anything wrong, and yet could not account for the listlessness that had come over the lad during the past few weeks.

As a matter of fact, Frederick was in love—quite desperately in love. The object of his adoration was the beautiful Miss Fairweather. No doctor in the world could have properly diagnosed the youngster's case, for the simple reason that Frederick's disease was a perfectly healthy one, and when you confront a doctor with anything in the nature of health you stump him completely. He doesn't know what to do about it. Nevertheless, Dr. Fiddler—being a great man and entirely ignorant of Frederick's complaint—gave him castor oil.

Now this same Dr. Fiddler undoubtedly had been in love at the tender age of twelve. What man is there to-day who was not desperately afflicted at that age, and who is there among us that has forgotten the experience? Who is there among us, past the age of thirty, who cannot tell without an instant's hesitation, the name of the mature young lady who first assailed his susceptibilities? Who can honestly say that he doesn't remember the school-teacher, or the choir-singer who taught the Sunday-school class, or the lady who came to visit mother and went away engaged to a friend of father's, or the nurse who queened it over the house when mother was ill and who devoted entirely too much time to the new baby? There is always one full-grown, lamentably old young lady in the life of every boy, and her name is imperishable. It is invariably MISS Somebody-or-other. No man can recall the Christian name of his first love for the very good reason that he never knew it. The universal lady is always MISS So-and-so. Even the most ardent of twelve-year-olds never forgets that his heart's desire is a lady whose years demand the most respectful consideration. Dr. Fiddler, having loved and lost, should have appreciated the tender passion that took away Frederick's appetite and made of him a melancholy sufferer. What Frederick needed was the moral support of a physician who would recommend and supply a quick and deadly poison with which Mr. Richard Flanders could be permanently squashed.

Melissa was his only friend and comforter. The children, and the servants who were not too busily engaged with their own affairs, openly scoffed at the love-sick young gentleman. Wilberforce sustained a bloody nose in retaliation and Watson, being a special offender, met with a painful and unaccountable accident one day while passing between the kitchen and the milk-house. A full-sized brick dropped from heaven knows where—(it must have come from heaven judging by the way it felt)—and as Watson's hat happened to be directly in the path of its descent the unfortunate footman was unable to tease Frederick for the better part of two days immediately thereafter and had to have six stitches taken in his head besides. Oddly enough, the only place from which a brick was found to be missing was in the walk leading to the stables, and Butts, being a thrifty soul, filled up the vacant spot with the heaven-sent substitute, having found on investigation that it fitted the vacuum perfectly. It was Melissa who kept Watson from taking out a warrant for young Master Frederick. She spoke very sharply to the damaged footman about something that had completely escaped the notice of Mr. Bingle, who, being no smoker, wouldn't have missed them if Watson had taken a whole handful of cigars a day instead of two or three twice a week the year round.

The privileged maid had read love stories from the time she was ten years old up to the beginning of her affair with Diggs the butler. The pleasant discovery that the mighty Diggs had taken a shine to her quite destroyed all of her interest in romance as it is written. She was not long in finding out that the people who write love-stories are not to be depended upon for accuracy in the depiction of passion. Diggs gave her an entirely new idea of manly devotion. Instead of adhering to the well-known and well-preserved formulas set down by the fictionists he behaved in a perfectly astonishing manner. He became acutely bashful and apprehensive, so much so, in fact, that for a while Melissa imagined that Mr. Bingle had given him notice because of the mistletoe episode on Christmas Eve. The poor fellow seemed to be dodging her all the time. And when she came upon him suddenly or unexpectedly he always began winding his watch and talking about the extraordinary resemblance she bore to a girl he had once known in England. The shock, therefore, was tremendous when Diggs asked her if she thought she could ever learn to care for him in THAT way. It was almost a week before Melissa could think of an answer to this astonishing question. It was "yes."

And so, having but recently suffered the surprise of her life, Melissa rushed to the succour of young Frederick. She whispered words of encouragement into the ear of the despairing youngster, and urged him to stand by his guns.

"You never can tell what is going to happen," she said. "Look at me, for instance. What could have been more miraculous than the thing that happened to me, Freddie? Who could have ever dreamed of Mr. Diggs falling in love with me? An important person like him falling heels over head in love with the likes of me! Can you beat it? Well, that's what I mean when I say you never can tell. You just keep a stiff upper lip, Freddie—and grow a little, of course—and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if you conquered the proud Miss Fairweather's haughty heart. Nothing—NOTHING on God's earth would surprise me now. Go in and win, Freddie. Of course, she is about twelve years older'n you are at present, but as time goes on she'll be getting younger. We always do. By the time you are thirty you will have caught up to her, I can tell you that. Take Mr. Diggs, for instance; he thinks I am only twenty-six. He says it's a crime for a man of his age—he's thirty- seven—to be making eyes at a soft young thing like me. He knows I'm only twenty-six, but what he don't know is that I was born nearly ten years before he even starts to counting. Now, in a very few years you will be twenty. Well, by that time she will be only eight years older than you are. You see, women don't put on years as rapidly as men. It's a peculiar trick of nature. I don't suppose there is another living creature in all God's dominion that lives as long as a woman does before it can get past thirty. Take Miss Stokes, the nurse, for instance. She's been nearly nine years going from twenty-seven to twenty-nine. So there you are. You just keep on growing up, Freddie— you needn't hurry, either—putting on a year every twelve months, and before you know it you'll be six months older than Miss Fairweather. Then—"

"Yes, but how about this big Flanders?" protested Frederick. "He's already grown-up and—"

"Nothing to it," said Melissa, "He hasn't got any money. He can't give her diamonds and fine raiment. He's got to ask her to wait till he's able to marry, hasn't he? Well, while she's about it, why shouldn't she wait for you? It all amounts to the same thing. You'll be able to marry her just as soon as he is. Now, don't be discouraged. Cheer up."

"You're awfully good, Melissa," said Frederick gloomily.

"And what's more, don't let 'em guy you about her. Mr. Diggs don't let any one guy him about me, you can bet. And say, if you can manage to sneak one of Mr. Bingle's razors out of his room some day, I'll shave you. There's nothing like getting your whiskers started early."

"Gee, Melissa, will you?"

"Like a shot. Let me feel your chin. Why, I swear to goodness, there's something there already. It's—"

"Honest, Melissa? Do you really mean it? I thought it was only fuzz."

"Fuzz your granny," said Melissa stoutly. "In a couple of months you could get a beard like a billy goat if you shaved regular."

"I don't want chin whiskers. I want a moustache."

"And in the meantime," went on Melissa with rare diplomacy, "you may see some one else that you like better than Miss Fairweather. That very frequently happens to a fellow when he's busy trying to get a beard."

"Do you think she likes Mr. Flanders, Melissa?" A great deal depended on her answer. That was to be seen by the expression in his young blue eyes.

"Certainly," said she promptly. "Everybody likes him. I like him. So does your ma and so does your pa. That's nothing to go by. Why, I'll bet you like him yourself. He's a fine fellow."

"Do you think he's very good looking?"

"In a way, yes," said Melissa, musingly. "I shouldn't call him quite perfect, however."

"Do you think he's as good-looking as Diggs?"

"I used to think so, but—Now, that reminds me: if you ever say a word to anybody about Mr. Diggs and me being enamoured of each other, I'll have nothing more to do with you—not a thing, d'you understand? It's a secret. Your pa and ma are not to know about it until we get ready to announce our engagement."

"I'll never tell," promised the young lover.

"And here's another thing: Don't you ever let on to Mr. Diggs that I'm over twenty-six. If you do, I'll tell your pa that you're using his razor, and—well, say, that would be a mortification for you. Miss Fairweather would never get over laughing at you. Do you know, I'm awfully sorry for Mr. Flanders. He is a fine fellow, and it will break his heart if you get her away from him, Freddie. It seems too bad for a rich young gentleman like you to be pitted against a poor, struggling newspaper man whose heart is afire with—"

"Oh, gee, Melissa, don't talk like that," cried Frederick in distress. "I DO like him, and I don't want him to ever be unhappy."

"That's the way to talk," she cried warmly. "That's regular nobility. Let's give him an equal chance, Freddie. If he can win, all well and good. We'll take our medicine. If he loses, why he can take his."

"I wish I was as old as he is," mourned Frederick.

"Poor fellow," sighed Melissa, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. "I DO feel sorry for him. I hate to see a fine, honourable gentleman's heart busted as you are likely to bust his for—"

"Oh, goodness!" gulped Frederick, his soul filled with pity for the unfortunate Flanders. He suppressed a sniffle, and then, after a moment consumed in re-ordering his emotions, went on brightly: "Of course, if she loves him, Melissa, I shall be the first to wish him joy. That's the kind of fellow I am."

"I wonder," mused Melissa, "if that's the kind of a fellow he'd be if some other fellow won his lady love away from him in a fair contest?"

It so happened that Mr. Flanders placed a diamond-ring upon the third finger of Miss Fairweather's left hand that same afternoon, and it also happened that the starry-eyed young lady submitted to a tender embrace immediately afterward. But a fortnight passed before Frederick, pale and wan with the anguish that lay in his young soul, could command the courage to go up to his big rival and wish him joy. For two weeks his heart had bled, for, be it also recorded, young Frederick happened to be lurking unseen in the library when the ring was passed. He saw the big man take the slim, adored princess in his arms, and he saw her face upturned to greet the lips that came down to meet her's in—Alas! Poor Frederick!

Right bravely he accosted Mr. Flanders one day as the brisk young man came swinging up the drive on his way from the railway station. Flanders usually came at three in the afternoon. This habit was known to Frederick. He also knew that the tall conqueror spent an hour with Mr. Bingle before Miss Fairweather descended from the school-room. In fact, every movement of Mr. Flanders from the instant he appeared on the estate to the moment he left it in a dash for the train, was known to the small victim of the green-eyed devil.

On this momentous occasion he resolutely laid in wait for Mr. Flanders near the lodge-gates. He had steeled himself against the bitterest moment in his life.

"Hello," he said, suddenly stepping out of the shrubbery and confronting the pedestrian, who brought himself up with a jerk.

"Hello," said Richard. "Getting the air?"

"I want to speak to you, Mr. Flanders," said Frederick, with immense gravity.

"Come along then, lad, because I'm in a rush. I have to catch the five-ten in to-day."

"I wish you wouldn't take such long steps." Flanders obligingly reduced his stride so that the boy was not forced to run to keep up with him. "I cut lessons, sir, to have a word with you. I just want to wish you good luck and joy, Mr. Flanders. You have won the heart and hand of the fairest lady in the land."

Flanders stopped in his tracks. "I say, youngster, that's—that's corking of you." He was blushing. "I had no idea that you children were on to us, so to speak. Thank you, Freddie."

"I have been on to you, Mr. Flanders, from the beginning. She is the loveliest lady—" he swallowed hard—"in the world, and I just wanted to tell you that if you don't treat her well I'll—I'll—well, you'll see."

Flanders was not smiling. He understood boys. He laid his big hand on the little fellow's sturdy shoulder and said, very seriously:

"I consider myself most fortunate, old chap, in having the advantage of you in years. If you were my own age, I should have stood small chance of winning the loveliest lady in the world. Shake hands, Freddie. I shall treat her well, my lad. If I fail in any particular I hope you'll take a shot at me on sight. I'm sorry, too, my boy."

"That's all right, Mr. Flanders," said Frederick bravely. "I bend the knee to a worthy rival, sir. I—I—" The words trailed off into indistinct murmurings, for he had completely forgotten the rest of the high-sounding sentences supplied for this very encounter by the helpful Melissa. She had written them out for him and he had learned them by heart. And now they failed him!

Flanders allowed his grip to tighten on the boy's shoulder. "You will get over it, Freddie. I had a similar affliction when I was your age. It was pretty rough, but I pulled through."

"I shall never love any one else, Mr. Flanders," said Frederick solemnly. "I shall never be untrue to her."

"Well, it's fine of you to take it in such a manly fashion, old chap. It's great. Not many fellows could have done what you've done. I'm sure I couldn't. It took grit to come out here and tell me this. Shake hands again, my boy. And I now promise that I shall keep her happy if it lies in the power of a human being to do so. You may depend upon it, Freddie."

"Thank you, Mr. Flanders. I have great confidence in you. I trust you. If you should ever require the support of a strong and willing henchman in time of dire trouble or conflict with merciless— merciless—" He stopped in distress. Once more Melissa's well-turned sentences went back on him. For the life of him, he couldn't remember the all-important noun.

"Scoundrels," supplied Mr. Flanders kindly.

"No, that isn't the word," said Frederick, thinking hard. "Merciless— merciless—Oh, yes—renegades! If you should ever require the support of a strong and—"

"All right," cried Flanders. "I understand. I'll call on you, you may be sure."

"There was something more I wanted to say, but the—the words don't seem to come as they ought to."

"It's this beastly weather," said Flanders. "I never can think well in cold weather. I seem to freeze up."

Frederick was relieved. "I guess maybe that's it. When are you going to marry her?" The last was a genuine, unrehearsed inquiry and completely summed up the situation so far as he was concerned.

"It isn't quite settled. A great deal depends on circumstances."

"Money?"

"In a way, yes."

"What does she say about it? Is she willing to wait eight or ten years for you?"

"She says she will wait forever," said Flanders, a bit puzzled by the new turn.

"Well, that's all right, then," said Frederick and to Richard's amazement he squared his shoulders and heaved a long sigh, as of relief. "Excuse me, please, I've got to hustle. Melissa—" He stopped in painful confusion. It had been on the tip of his ingenuous tongue to blurt out something that would have spoiled all that had gone before. It had to do with Melissa's present whereabouts and her oft- repeated claim that if Flanders kept Miss Fairweather waiting long enough he'd lose her, sure as a shot!

An amazing thing happened to Frederick that evening, just before bedtime. Miss Fairweather kissed him sweetly, not once but thrice, full on the lips, and told him that he was the nicest little boy in all the world.



CHAPTER XII

THE BIRTH OF NAPOLEON

Mr. Bingle saw Monsieur Rouquin again. The excellent manager of the foreign exchange assured the vice-president that he could now guarantee to procure the most adorable of French infants at a moment's notice, an infant that he could personally recommend in every particular.

"Sir," said Monsieur Rouquin, "it is impossible to imagine a more perfect child, let alone to create one. I have seen thousands, millions of babies, M'sieur Bangle, but not one so—"

"Bingle," corrected the vice-president.

"It is my abominable, unpardonable dialect," deplored Rouquin, who spoke English without a flaw. "Millions of babes have I seen, but not one so wonderful as this one. It is a—ah—it is a perfect specimen of—"

"You say 'it,' Rouquin. Am I to understand that its gender is unknown to you?"

"No, no!" cried Rouquin. "To be sure I know the sex of this adorable infant. I know the parents—"

"What is it? A boy or a girl?"

Rouquin closed an eye slowly. "Ah, M'sieur Bang—Bingle, may I not leave the question of sex to the child itself? What could be more beautiful than to present to your notice a perfect example of humanity, without uttering a single word to aid you in your speculation as to the gender, and then to sit calmly back and relish the joy you will reveal when you find that you have guessed correctly the very first time, as the boys would say? That would be the magnificent compensation to me. You will need but one glance at this wonderful specimen. One glance will be sufficient. You will instantly exclaim: 'What a monstrous fine boy—or girl!' as the case may be. Ah, sir—"

"I must have a boy," said Mr. Bingle.

Monsieur Rouquin looked relieved. He permitted a roguish light to steal into his eyes. "I still implore you to keep your mind open, Mr. Bingle, until you have seen the child I have in mind. Permit me this little, silly, boyish pleasure, sir—the pleasure of hearing you exclaim—out of a clear sky, so to say—'Ah, what a monstrous fine—'"

"All right, Rouquin," broke in Mr. Bingle. "Only I warn you that if it isn't a boy, it will be a case of love's labour lost on your part."

"M'sieur, I beg your pardon," said Rouquin, a trifle stiffly. "Does M'sieur mean to imply—to insinuate that—"

"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Bingle hastily. "It's a saying of Shakespeare, Rouquin. Of course, love's labour is never really lost. It's a figure of speech."

"Ah!" said Monsieur Rouquin, smiting himself on the forehead. "I should have known. Have I no brain? Listen! I tap my head. Does it not give out a hollow sound, as if entirely empty? Say yes, my dear sir. I shall not be offended. To have misinterpreted the polite—Ah, but, it is of no consequence. Pray proceed, sir." "Proceed?" muttered Mr. Bingle, frowning. "There's nothing more to the quotation, Rouquin, so far as I know. Merely 'love's labour lost,' no more. But I would like to ask a question or two. Are the parents of this child quite respectable people?" Rouquin rolled his eyes upward. "Utterly," he said, with deep feeling in his voice.

"Healthy?"

"Parfaitment!"

"What does that mean?"

"Perfectly, my dear Mr. Bingle."

"Oh! And are they married?"

"Mon dieu!" cried Rouquin, turning scarlet. "Absolutely, sir— incontestably."

"I mean, to each other."

"Monsieur jests," was all that Rouquin could say. He wiped his brow, however.

"Well, when may we see the child? When can we talk it over with the parents?"

"That is for you to say, sir."

"To-morrow afternoon?"

"I shall so arrange it, sir. Will not you and Madame Bang—Bingle honour me with your presence at a little tea-room—quite an excellent and refined place that I know of—before we go to inspect the child? It will give me the greatest pleasure if—"

"See here, Rouquin, that's most kind of you, but I'd prefer to have you take tea with Mrs. Bingle and me. Do you know of a nice, but thoroughly typical French restaurant where we could—er—get a bit of the atmosphere, don't you know? We are figuring on taking a trip to Paris soon and we'd like to—well, you know what I mean? Quiet, respectable place, you know. Nothing rowdyish."

Rouquin's eyes sparkled. His joy was great. "Ah, I know of such a place. But it is not a tea-room, in the strict sense of the term. It is a cafe where one has the finest table d'hote dinner in all New York for one dollar per person, wine included. Ah, if Monsieur would only condescend to dine there, AFTER we have seen the child, I am sure—"

"I'll telephone you in the morning," said Mr. Bingle, his eyes gleaming. "I shall have to speak to Mrs. Bingle about it first."

It was left that they were to visit the infant and its utterly respectable parents at four on the following afternoon. Rouquin had already assured Mr. Bingle that only the direst necessity made it possible for the wretched father and mother to even THINK of giving up their greatest treasure, this marvellous infant. In fact, it was only because they loved the child so dearly that they were content to see it pass out of their lives. For, said Monsieur Rouquin, they were so poor and so proud that suicide was the only thing left for them in this terrific struggle with adversity, and what was to become of the child if they killed themselves? They would not murder their adored one, and, while it was quite possible for the father and mother to destroy themselves, one really couldn't expect a fifteen months old child to take its own life by involuntary starvation—which was unspeakable. And, said he, they couldn't consider suicide without first making sure that their beloved was safely provided for. After that—well, they could then go about it quite happily, if needs be. Mr. Bingle was deeply distressed.

Rouquin had quite a surprise for them when they called at the bank for him. As he settled himself gracefully in the seat beside Mrs. Bingle, he announced that he had arranged with the heart-sick parents to fetch the babe to his humble apartment at half-past four, where at least one could be sure of avoiding the unfriendly presence of a too-persistent rent-collector, to say nothing of the distressing odours of extreme poverty. Indeed, said Monsieur Rouquin, it was not improbable that they might find the excellent Rousseaus in the apartment on their arrival there, as he had given directions to the janitor to admit them without question. He couldn't bear the thought of poor little Madame Rousseau standing outside in the cold hall with that adorable infant in imminent peril of freezing to death because of insufficient apparel.

"Are they descendants of the great genre painter?" inquired Mrs. Bingle. There was a small painting by the great Barbizon artist in the Bingle drawing-room. She had been reading up on Rousseau, and Miss Fairweather had told her how to pronounce genre.

"That I cannot affirm, Madame," said Rouquin, with infinite regret in his voice. "It is possible, even probable, that Monsieur Rousseau is a direct descendant, but I am not in a position to say so with authority. I shall make it a point to repeat your question to him."

"It would be most interesting to have a descendant of Rousseau in the same house with one of his masterpieces, and under the conditions we face, don't you think, Mr. Rouquin?" Mrs. Bingle had never been quite secure in her pronunciation of monsieur, so she avoided the word.

Monsieur Rouquin agreed that it would be amazingly interesting, and then went on to say that he had known Madame Rousseau while she was still petite Marie Vallamont, but his acquaintance with her husband was of short duration. In fact, he knew little about him except that his great grandfather had been beheaded at the time of the revolution, which was in itself sufficient proof that he was descended from the aristocracy if not the nobility of France.

"You are aware, of course," said he, "that only the aristocracy had their heads cut off during those eventful days."

"Oh, yes, indeed," said both Mr. and Mrs. Bingle so promptly that Monsieur Rouquin at once changed the subject. He realised that they knew quite as much if not more of French history than he.

As he had suspected, the Rousseaus were awaiting them in the apartment. They were very nice looking young people, rather shabbily attired in garments which, though clearly the cast-off apparel of more prosperous owners, were still neat and remotely fashionable. Madame Rousseau was quite a pretty woman, with a soft, restrained voice and a tendency to say "Oui, Madame," with great frequency and politeness. Her husband, poor as he was, sustained the credit of aristocracy by smoking innumerable cigarettes, with which he appeared to be most plentifully supplied. "You found my cigarettes, I see. That is good," said Rouquin, shortly after the introductions. He spoke somewhat tartly, as if an idea had just occurred to him. He shot a furtive glance at Mr. Bingle as he made the remark.

"Oh, yes," said Rousseau, after an instant's hesitation. "I beg Madame's pardon. Does the smoking annoy?"

"Not at all," said Mrs. Bingle. "I am used to it. Mr. Bingle smokes a pipe."

"Well, where is the baby?" said Mr. Bingle, declining the cigarette which Rousseau proffered in the absence of hospitality on Monsieur Rouquin's part.

"Oh," said Madame Rousseau, "it sleeps. I have put it into Monsieur Raoul's warm bed. Such a cruelty it would be to awake the baby, M'sieur."

"I think I'd like to see what it looks like while asleep, Madame," said Bingle, with the air of a shrewd bargainer. "You see, I've become quite an expert on babies. I don't believe there is a better judge of —I beg your pardon. I forgot to inquire if my English is quite intelligible. Do you follow me?"

"Your English is perfect, M'sieur," she assured him, brightly. "May I say that it surprises me. I have been in your America for five years and I have not before this hour heard an American speak the English language so perfectly—"

"Ahem!" coughed Rouquin, and Madame Rousseau completed her estimate of Mr. Bingle's English by spreading her hands in a gesture which signified utter inability to express herself in words. "Shall we peep into my bedroom?" went on the foreign exchange manager.

"Said the spider to the fly," came quite distinctly from Monsieur Rousseau.

"Remember," cautioned Rouquin, his hand on the door-knob, "you are to guess what it is, Mr. Bingle."

"I suppose I'm to have two guesses," said Mr. Single, with a chuckle.

"Certainly," said Rouquin. "Provided your first guess is wrong."

Stealthily the group entered the bedroom of Monsieur Rouquin. The window shades were down. The room was quite dark. On the bed was a dimly distinguishable heap.

"Sh!" whispered Madame Rousseau, putting a finger to her lips—which in the light of the sun were singularly red and unstarved.

"Sh!" echoed her husband.

"Sh!" said Rouquin.

On tip-toe they all advanced upon the heap, now resolved into a pile of pink blankets. Mr. Bingle leaned far over the heap. Then he put on his spectacles.

"Where is it?" he whispered.

"Mon dieu!" gulped the young mother, in consternation. She whipped the blankets off the bed. There was no baby. A second later she darted through a door on the opposite side of the room, slamming it violently behind her. Monsieur Rousseau started to laugh but cut it short and sputtered Mon dieu three or four times in a choked voice.

"What does all this mean?" demanded Mr. Bingle. "God bless my soul!"

In the meantime, Madame Rousseau was confronting a motherly looking person in Monsieur Rouquin's bath-room, down the little hall. The motherly looking person was holding a fat, yellow-headed baby on her lap and to the mouth of the fat, yellow-headed baby was attached the business end of a half-emptied milk-bottle.

The conversation was in whispered French, and of exceeding bitterness on one side. It is not necessary to repeat what was said. It is only necessary to explain that the motherly looking person was the infant's grandmother—in fact the mother of Madame Rousseau. From certain disjointed explanatory scraps that fell from the motherly person's lips it might have been divined that the baby awoke some time before the arrival of the great philanthropist, and that grandmere deemed it to be the part of wisdom to feed it thoroughly before submitting it for inspection. No one takes to a howling brat, she protested. Besides, what was she there for if not to look after the child of her ungrateful, selfish daughter who had not the slightest feeling of— But, all this time, Madame Rousseau was informing her mother that she was a meddlesome, stupid old blunderer, and that the fat was in the fire. She snatched the baby from the old lady's arms. The bottle crashed to the tile floor and painted a section of it white, its pristine hue. The infant was too surprised to cry. It maintained an open-mouthed silence even as its mother whisked out of the bath-room and brought the door to with a bang, leaving grandmere in the centre of a pool of white, still whispering shrilly that even though a wise father might by chance know his own son, a mother never could hope to know her own daughter.

Messieurs Rouquin and Rousseau were talking loudly, rapidly and very excitedly to each other—in French, of course—when Madame burst into the room with the infant. Mr. and Mrs. Bingle, still staring at the unoccupied bed, had nothing but blank bewilderment in their honest faces.

"Ah!" shouted the two Frenchmen joyously.

"That stupid servant!" squealed Madame Rousseau, hugging the baby to her breast in frantic relief. "Oh, what a fright I have had. Take the baby, Jean. Mon dieu! Do not let it fall! Oh, m'sieur, madame, you will never know how I was anguished. I thought I had lost my darling, my adored one. The black-hand what-you-call-him—non, non, the kidnapper. My baby! Jean, Jean, do not let it out of your sight again —never, do you hear. Now, madame, will you not be kind enough to look at my baby? Come, m'sieur, to the window. Jean, pull up the shade."

Jean almost dropped his precious burden in his eagerness to do as he was bidden, and might actually have done so but for the timely intervention of Monsieur Rouquin, who sprang to the window and sent the shade up with a crash that caused Mrs. Bingle to jump with alarm.

"See!" shouted Rouquin, stepping back and pointing proudly at the baby.

"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Bingle.

"Oh, the darling!" cried his wife, and tried at once to take the sunny-faced youngster from the arms of Monsieur Jean. But Jean held on very tightly, apparently awaiting orders. It may have been the unusual fervour of the father's clasp that caused the child to whimper, or it may have been that it never had seen such an expression in its parent's face before. At any rate, as it looked up into Jean's swarthy countenance it began to cry; where upon Madame Rousseau exclaimed shrilly:

"Can't you see, Jean? Madame would hold my baby to her breast. Quick! You big simpleton! Ah, madame, my poor Jean is so sad, so broken- hearted over the thought of losing his child that he—There! See! See the lovely smile once more?"

It was true that the instant Mrs. Bingle received the plump wriggler in her arms, the beaming smile was restored. Jean moved quickly into the background, and turned his miserable face away from the scene.

The Rousseau baby WAS adorable, there could be no mistake about that. In previous experiences, Mr. and Mrs. Bingle had encountered half- starved, unhappy, whining infants. This was the first time they had come upon a lusty, apparently over-fed specimen, and they were at once filled with the joy of covetousness. Thick yellow curls, bright blue eyes, and cheeks that would have shamed the peach's bloom—and a nearly completed row of tiny white teeth—such was the Rousseau applicant at first glance. Moreover, its clothing was clean, soft and sweet-smelling of fabrics that do not often find their way into the houses of the poverty-stricken.

"Wait!" exclaimed Rouquin, fairly dancing with exuberant joy. "Wait! Now, Mr. Bingle—now for the guess, sir. I give you but one guess. What is it—a boy or a girl?"

Madame Rousseau clasped her hands ecstatically upon her bosom. "Oh, as if my baby could be anything but—"

"Sh!" hissed the master of ceremonies.

So much whirlwind excitement as all this, so much radiant joy over the disposal of a baby, had never entered into any previous negotiation, and Mr. Bingle was quite carried away by the novelty of the situation. Never before had the ceremony resolved itself into an enigma, a puzzle, so to speak, in which it was his privilege to make one guess.

"It's a boy," said he, with conviction, whereupon the mother, the father and Monsieur Rouquin filled the room with joyous exclamations and the baby, imitative little beggar that he was, crowed with delight.

Madame Rousseau could not get over the despicable behaviour of Rouquin's servant. She kept on berating the creature and advising Rouquin to dismiss her, until at last Mrs. Bingle announced that the poor thing undoubtedly had acted for the best and out of the goodness of her heart. She also said that she would like to see the woman.

Monsieur Rouquin being of a mind to dismiss the presumptuous domestic, Mrs. Bingle blandly declared that, if her references were all as good as the one Madame Rousseau was giving her, she wouldn't hesitate for an instant to engage her to look after the child in case it joined the Bingle collection. There were voluble protests in French from both Madame Rousseau and Rouquin, and then Monsieur Jean announced in English that the old servant was like a mother to Rouquin and that he would as soon think of cutting off his right hand as to allow her to go out of his life. Rouquin glared at him for this, and the shabby- genteel Jean had the audacity to close one eye slowly.

Madame Rousseau's mother was permitted to remain in the bath-room, and no further reference was made to her.

"Well, let's get down to business," said Mr. Bingle, presenting his forefinger to the babe for inspection. Monsieur l'Enfant promptly seized it and conveyed it toward his earnest mouth. "No, no!" cried Mr. Bingle reprovingly. "Mustn't do that. Naughty, naughty! The microbes will get you if you don't watch out. Dear me, what a strong little rascal he is! By the way, what is his name?"

"It has been Napoleon," said the mother. "But he can be made to forget it, m'sieur, if you desire."

"Napoleon Bingle," mused Mr. Bingle, and then sent a sharp, questioning glance to his wife. She gravely nodded her head. "Not at all bad. Ahem! Shall we return to the other room? Naturally there are a great many questions to be asked and answered. Rouquin, will you oblige me by getting a pad of paper and taking down all of the—er— statistics?"

It developed that Napoleon Rousseau, now sitting bolt upright in Mrs. Bingle's lap and staring wide-eyed at the interesting face of Jean Rousseau, was a trifle over fourteen months of age, born in New York City, the son of Jean and Marie Vallemont Rousseau, persons lawfully wedded in the city of Paris by a magistrate—(Madame explained that while the certificate with all of Jean's paintings had been destroyed in the fire which wrecked their tiny apartment soon after their arrival in New York, a copy could easily be obtained if M'sieur et Madame insisted on going into such small details)—and of sound health so far as could be known at this time. He had survived the heat of one summer and had actually thrived on the frigidity of this, his second winter, notwithstanding the fact that he had frequently slept without covering in their poor, wind-swept attic.

"Splendid!" said Mr. Single, casting an admiring glance at the rubicund Napoleon. "A hardy chap, by Jove. Of course, Madame, you understand that it will be necessary for you to appear with us before the proper authorities and sign certain papers, and so forth, before the baby can be legally adopted by Mrs. Bingle and myself. The law provides that you and your husband shall release all—"

"Mon dieu!" muttered Madame Rousseau, and as she had uttered the expression no fewer than twenty times in the past half hour, Mrs. Bingle was less favourably impressed with her than at the outset. To Mrs. Bingle "Mon dieu" was blasphemy. "Is not my word sufficient, m'sieur? I freely give my child to you. I am its mother. No one else has a right to say what—"

"Ah, but you forget its father," interrupted Mr. Bingle.

"Yes," said Monsieur Jean, amiably. "Has the child's father nothing to say about—"

"Be quiet, Jean," broke in his wife severely. Then to Rouquin: "You did not so inform me, M'sieur Rouquin. You told me nothing of this going into a court or what-you-call-it. I am aghast. Why do you not tell me of this, M'sieur Rouquin? Is it not enough that I give up my beloved Napoleon? Am I to be humiliated by revealing my misery, my despair—"

"Now, now," broke in Mr. Bingle kindly, feeling extremely sorry for the unfortunate Rouquin, who, after all, was trying to befriend the woman. The face of the foreign exchange teller was quite livid, no doubt from the effect of a suppressed indignation. "It is really nothing to be worried about, Madame. We merely go before a magistrate in Chambers and swear to certain things—both of you, of course—and that's all there is to it. You must declare that you, as the mother of Napoleon, voluntarily relinquish all claim to him in favour of his foster parents, and we, in turn, swear that—well, that we will bring him up as our own, and—er—don't you know. That's quite simple, isn't it?"

"Quite," said Rouquin.

"And you, Mr. Rousseau, will be obliged to swear that you, as well as your wife, forfeit all claim, present or future, to this child, and do so without force or duress. Of course, I shall ask my attorney to explain everything to both of you, so that you may not act without complete understanding. Before we go before the Court, you will be instructed in every move you are to make. And now, Madame, will you be willing to take oath that you are the mother of Napoleon and as such will henceforth cease to regard him as your son in case we conclude to adopt him as our own?"

Madame Rousseau looked from Jean to Rouquin and then from Rouquin to Jean, quite helpless in the face of this requirement. Rouquin and Jean looked at each other, and Jean's jaw was set rather hard and there was an anxious, uncertain look in his eyes—a look not far short of being rebellious. The young mother covered her face with her hands and began to sob violently. For some reason, Jean's jaw relaxed.

"Oh, my poor little Napoleon!" she moaned. "How can I give you up? My angel Napoleon!"

"See here," exclaimed Mr. Bingle, touched by this sudden aspect of misery, "I'm a very tender-hearted man. If you will permit me, Madame, I may be able to arrange a way for you and your husband to find a means of living comfortably on good wages, and you may then be in a position to keep little Napoleon—"

"No, no!" cried she instantly—almost fiercely. "I could not think of it, M'sieur. I cannot consent to any—"

"Pardon me," interrupted Rouquin blandly. "Allow me to propose a—"

"I shall not listen to any proposition that may include Jean and myself in—"

"In other words," said Rouquin, turning to Mr. Bingle, "she will not accept charity for herself or her husband. They are very proud, Mr. Bingle. They would die before accepting charity from—"

"A thousand times!" blurted out Monsieur Jean, wiping his brow. "Count me out!"

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Bingle.

Napoleon began to cry. He had a lusty pair of lungs. Almost instantly, the motherly looking person appeared in the doorway. She had been waiting for Napoleon's signal.

"See!" she cried, holding up a bottle of milk. "I have it! To the dairy-lunch and the chemist's I have been while—"

Rouquin leaped forward and snatched the squalling Napoleon from Mrs. Bingle's arms, and an instant later deposited him in those of his maternal grandmother, who in almost the same instant was pushed rudely out of the room. The door was quickly closed. Napoleon's howls receded.

"Now," said Rouquin, "we may talk in peace. My faithful old servant, Madame," he went on, turning to Mrs. Bingle with his rarest smile. "I do not know what I should do without her. She has gone out for the milk and—Ah, what a treasure she is! Mon dieu, how I appreciate that wonderful Fifi! That is her name, Madame—Fifi. Ah! Sublime—"

"She didn't look like a servant, Mr. Rouquin," said Mrs. Bingle, recovered from her surprise.

"You speak of her dress, Madame? Has she not declared but now, this instant, that she went out to the chemist's, to the dairy-lunch? Catch Fifi on the street in her servant's dress! No, no! She spends her wages on dress, vain creature. She would no more think of venturing upon the street in—but, we waste time. Of what interest can be the foibles of my poor old servant to you. Madame? Come, Marie—you see I have known Madame Rousseau these many years, M'sieur—come, let us assure Mr. Bingle that he need have nothing to fear if he decides to do you—and poor old Jean here—the honour of adopting your most fortunate baby."

Madame Rousseau dried her eyes upon a singularly pretty little handkerchief, and then smiled beatifically.

"M'sieur need have no fear. I shall take the oath for my grand, my adorable Napoleon's sake. After that, what shall I care what becomes of me. He shall be safe. That is enough."

"Good!" cried Mr. Bingle. Then he turned to the silent, glowering Jean. "And you, my good man. Will you also take oath that Napoleon is your son and that you, as his lawful father—"

"I say, Rouquin," began Jean in a far from amiable tone. Rouquin at once took him by the arm and led him into the bedroom, whispering fiercely all the way.

"My Jean is very proud," explained Madame Rousseau, dabbing her nose and eyes with a bit of a powder rag. "He is so obstinate, too. But M'sieur Rouquin will talk sense into his head, never fear."

There was an awkward silence. Finally Mrs. Bingle spoke.

"Is your husband a descendant of the painter?"

Madame Rousseau looked surprised.

"He IS the painter, Madame."

"The—impossible! I refer to the great Rousseau of the 1880 school."

"Oh, I see. No, no—he is not that one. Jean was not yet born. Mon dieu, was there another Rousseau?"

"There was," said Mrs. Bingle tartly. "Jean is the painter of to-day. He is great, he is splendid, he is magnificent. But, la la! he is so poor!"

"That seems to establish him all right," said Mr. Bingle.

Rouquin and Jean reappeared. Both were smiling cheerfully. Jean affected a somewhat degage manner and a perceptible swagger.

"Very well, M'sieur," he said. "I'll swear to it."

"Then I shall leave the details to my attorney, who, you will discover, is a most conscientious, dependable person. In the meantime, when will it be convenient for Dr. Fiddler to examine Napoleon?"

Rouquin explained at some length in rapid French, and Madame Rousseau was once more consoled. Jean appeared to be somewhat bored. He yawned, in fact.

"And now," cried Monsieur Rouquin in a great voice, "I have a plan. Let us celebrate the birth of Monsieur Napoleon Bingle by dining together at Pierre's. This day he is born again—or, at least, prospectively born. Life for him really begins to-day—the sixth of March. It is my treat! I shall be the host on this memorable occasion. Pierre shall give to us the best duckling in his larder and the rarest bottle of—"

"But my dear Rouquin," began Mr. Bingle.

"I implore you, kind friend, to honour me with your presence this evening. The greatest day of my life shall be this one if you but consent to grace my board with your lovely lady. And poor Madame Rousseau and her amiable husband shall not be the ghosts at the feast, as one might suspect, but joyful spirits. To them we will drink a toast of good will and better luck next time, and they may drink to you, madame and sir, the health of one grand Napoleon Bingle, in whose past they both shared but whose future can only be a—"

"Oh, I say, Rouquin," broke in Monsieur Jean languidly, "why not make it 'many happy returns of the day'? That's the real issue."

Rouquin coughed violently, and, upon recovering himself, went on with a slight modification of his rapture: "Whatever should come of this day's work, we should all drink deeply to the health, prosperity and fame of a future president of the United States—Napoleon Bingle! Come, Madame Bingle, you cannot refuse to join your humble servant and petitioner in one jolly, epoch-making—though absolutely respectable— celebration in honour of our little Napoleon. And you, M'sieur—Ah, you, sir! Have you not in prospect the alliance of your own honoured name with that of the most notable Frenchman of recent times? Napoleon! Bingle! Ah, think of it! Bingle—Napoleon! We can afford to overlook the fact that Napoleon was a Corsican and not a—real Frenchman. We can—"

"Just as we must overlook the fact that little Napoleon is a Rousseau and not a Bingle," said Mr. Bingle drily.

"Quite so, quite so," agreed Rouquin hastily. "Napoleon Bonaparte was the adopted son of France, and Napoleon Rousseau is the adopted son of the great Thomas Bingleton Single—" "Singleton Bingle," corrected Mr. Bingle, as Rouquin hesitated in evident appreciation of his mixed consonants.

"I am sure Madame Rousseau will not feel like joining in a feast at this time," said Mrs. Bingle. "It is hardly an occasion for jollification—"

"Ah, Madame," cried Madame Rousseau, with sparkling eyes, "it is not for myself that I would jollify, but for the adored Napoleon. It is for him that I would rejoice. Is he not to become rich and honoured, and is he not to be given by law a name that he can never be ashamed of as long as he—"

Rouquin broke in again, hastily and somewhat apprehensively. "Let us save our fine phrases for the banquet board. Ah, I can see it in M'sieur Bingle's face! He will accept my little hospitality. He will come with Madame to Pierre's. He will make me to be forever honoured among men. He—"

"I'll come on one condition only, Rouquin."

"And what is that, M'sieur?"

"That I may settle the bill."

Rouquin was amiable. He shrugged his shoulders and beamed. "I should be the last to say no to any demand of my guests. If it would give you pleasure, sir, to pay for my dinner, I shall not protest. I am the most courteous of hosts. The smallest wish of my guests must be gratified. However, sir, I reserve the right to order the dinner which I am giving. You will not deny me that, I am sure."

"By no means," cried Bingle. "Order whatever you like, Rouquin. I've never been able to order anything from a French bill-of-fare but pate- de-foi-gras. It's your dinner, Rouquin, not mine. But, we are going ahead too fast. We have not yet heard from Monsieur Rousseau. Will he be willing to join us?"

"Sure," said Monsieur Jean.

"And what about the baby? Is it right for us to take a small child to a public cafe where there may be drinking and—"

"My dear Mrs. Bingle," cried Rouquin, "pray have no thought of Napoleon's comfort on this occasion. I shall insist upon Madame Rousseau leaving him here—in my humble dwelling—until called for. That is to say, in charge of my wonderful Fifi, who will care for him completely during her absence. He shall have a stupendous supper and he shall be put to bed happy. For once in his poor little life he shall have abundance of food and the joy of a warm nest to lie in. Ah, it is a great day for Napoleon!"

Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Bingle stepped into a new and hitherto unsuspected world the instant they entered Pierre's. They stepped out of it at ten o'clock that night and into a very commonplace, humdrum sort of automobile and were whisked homeward by an astonished, unbelieving chauffeur. They had drunk the health of Napoleon the present, Napoleon the past, and Napoleon the future, and they had done it from cobwebby, mouldy bottles out of the uttermost depths of Pierre's cellars. They were pleasantly, agreeably conscious of going home, and they talked a great deal of the vivacious, though heartbroken mother of little Napoleon, who, despite her shabby frock, was the life of the party. And Monsieur Jean—he, the great artist and stricken father—he too was gay and amusing. He sang a wonderful little French song that was applauded violently by people at the nearby tables, and he drew wonderful caricatures of the musicians, the head waiter, the shockingly bad soprano, and of Mr. Bingle himself. Rouquin alone was nervous and uneasy, but of course only on account of his illustrious guests. He was constantly imploring both Madame and Monsieur Rousseau to reflect before speaking, and they obeyed him by reflecting in a thoroughly audible manner so that he might not be left in the dark as to their intentions.

Mr. and Mrs. Bingle said good night on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. As the latter shook hands with little Madame Rousseau, the mother of Napoleon suddenly fell to shivering. All of the gaiety fell from her like a discarded mantle. Her piquant face became drawn and pinched and her fingers clasped those of Mrs. Bingle in a fierce, almost painful grip. She drew the elder woman apart from the group.

"Oh, Madame, you will be good to my little boy," she whispered, beating her breast with her free hand. "I am not gay. I am unhappy. I would not give him up but his father insists it is for the best. I may see him some time, may I not? I love him. He is my joy, my everything. To-night I sing and laugh, but my heart is not light. Non, non! It is like a stone, like ice. Oh, Madame, I implore you to be good to my little boy!"

She was crying softly. Mrs. Bingle put her arm about the bent shoulders and drew the young mother close to her side.

"Don't you worry, my dear. We'll make a fine man of your little Napoleon. Some day you will look with pride upon him and say: 'I'm glad I brought that man into the world, even though he doesn't know it.' And I am glad that you have cried. It makes another woman of you. I would say 'God bless you,' Madame Rousseau, if it were not that he has already blessed you."

Later on in the night, Rouquin and his two companions paused at the foot of a Sixth Avenue Elevated station.

"Good night, old fellow," said Rouquin, giving Jean's hand a mighty grip. "You are a true friend."

Then Jean said good night cheerily and walked off down the street, whistling gaily, as one who has completed an honest day's work.

I think I have neglected to mention that Rouquin was an exceedingly good-looking, fascinating chap of twenty-eight or thirty, and unmarried.



CHAPTER XIII

TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE!

Chapter thirteen is an unlucky one for Mr. Bingle. Many unpleasant things are crowded into the space devoted to this division of the narrative, although in the matter of time we leap from early March to the fifth of July with all the swiftness of one who races at break- neck speed to get away from consequences, or to put a disagreeable task as far behind as possible.

In the first place, Kathleen was permitted to remain with the Bingles far beyond the date set for her departure in the custody of a new set of parents. It so happened that on the very day selected for her departure, which was early in March, Rutherford and Imogene came down with a fever and a rash. Dr. Fiddler was summoned from the city. Just as he entered the broad portals at the front of the house, two of the nurse-maids, Stokes and Brown, walked swiftly down the back stairs with their suitcases and bandboxes in their hands.

Mr. Bingle was notified that they wanted to see him at once in the library. They appeared to be in a great hurry to catch a train for the city. From time to time, while they waited for the master of the house, they cast nervous, apprehensive looks in the direction of the door through which they had entered the room. Their apprehensions apparently were justified by the abrupt arrival upon the scene of Wright and Quinlan, the other nurse-maids, both of whom were hot and flushed and still in a state of frowsy preparation for a journey. They too had their suitcases and bundles and they too were trying to balance unfastened hats upon the top of agitated heads.

Mr. Bingle came into the room just in time to hear each of the four accusing all of the others of trying to sneak off and leave her with the bag to hold, or words to that effect. With his entrance, however, each of the hasty nurse-maids was reminded of a dreadfully sick relative in town and of the necessity for instant departure. What they wanted of Mr. Bingle was their pay—and a reference.

The poor gentleman was flabbergasted. He wanted to know what had happened. They told him in one voice that it was nearly train-time and that nothing had happened, and would he please hurry. When he suggested that they should wait and see Mrs. Bingle, they asked him to say good-bye for them, and made for the door, crowding one another rudely in their eagerness to be off. Brown saved the situation for herself and her companions by shrilly declaring that she would drop him a line from New York, advising him where to send her money and the reference, and for him not to bother now, she would trust him, of course. And then they all trooped out of the library and rushed for the front door. Three of them reached the outer air and were gone forever, but one of them, Miss Stokes, was turned back by the determined Watson, who clutched her by the arm and whispered a few sharp, convincing sentences into her ear. She set down her suitcase and began to cry, whereupon the footman kissed her and said that he'd despise her if she didn't stand by Mr. Bingle now that he needed her so much; and Stokes said that she was crying because she hated herself for even thinking of leaving and that the other girls were the scum of the earth, take it from her.

Well, it turned out that the two children had scarlet fever. Brown happened to know that Imogene had been exposed to the disease during a surreptitious visit to the cottage of the station agent, whose wife it appears was a close friend of the nursemaid, and whose baby thrived immensely on the rich foods from the Bingle establishment. So the instant the rash appeared, Brown began packing her suitcase and trunk. She tried to get away without letting the other girls into the secret, but they suspected. What might have been a dignified resignation on Brown's part, became a stampede.

That afternoon the Force automobile came for Kathleen. Mr. and Mrs. Force were confronted by Diggs as they came up the steps. He gave them the news.

"The deuce you say," said Force, backing down the steps. "Has she been exposed?"

Mr. Bingle appeared in the doorway. "Come in, please," he said, covering his bare head with a newspaper. "Got some bad news for you."

"What the devil do you mean, Bingle, by running around among the riff- raff of all New York, picking up germs and bringing 'em out here to a house full of children? See what you've done, gallivanting around with Rouquin's cheap—"

"Oh, come now, Force! Don't blame poor little Napoleon. It takes ten days or so for a case to develop and I saw Napoleon only two days ago. Come in, won't you? I can't stand here in the—"

"No, thank you," exploded Mr. Force. "I've never had the infernal thing, and it's usually fatal in adults. I wouldn't expose myself to it for a million dollars. Shut the door, Diggs, confound you! Do you want to have the microbes blowing out here into my very face? Get back in the car, dear! Lord, what a nice mess it is. Hang it all, Bingle, didn't I tell you in so many words not to let Kathleen play around with all those little—"

"Kathleen hasn't got it—yet," said Mr. Bingle hotly. "Only two of 'em have shown—"

"We cannot consider taking her away with us now," said Mrs. Force, with decision. "You can't expect us to expose ourselves to—"

"No, you can't, Bingle," broke in Mr. Force. "It's not to be thought of. She's got to stay here until—until the thing's over."

"That is to say, until she gets well or dies," said Mr. Bingle, raising his voice.

"Oh, I'll send out a good doctor and a couple of nurses. And, see here, I don't want this child cooped up with all the rest of 'em. I want her placed in a separate room, as far as possible from the—"

"By jingo!" cried Mr. Bingle. "I believe it would be a good thing for the child if she caught it and died. Good day, Mrs. Force. Better move rapidly, Force. You see, I've been exposed—and so has Diggs. We're alive with microbes."

And that is why Kathleen did not go South early in March—not until late in April, for that matter, when she had completely recovered from a particularly stubborn illness, and long after all of the others, except little Imogene, were up and about. Imogene died.

Miss Fairweather was the angel in this season of tribulation. She was true blue. Day and night she gave up to the care of the sick ones, and when it was all over the roses in her cheeks were missing, but the light in her eyes was bright.

Then Kathleen went away. Mr. Force, considerably humbled, apologised to Mr. Bingle for as many things as he could remember, and Mrs. Force, after all, did condescend to introduce Mrs. Bingle to her own exclusive dressmaker. Napoleon came. Mr. Bingle watched the newspapers for an account of the suicide of Monsieur and Madame Rousseau, but no such event was reported. No doubt the approach of spring deterred them. They would probably wait until cold weather set in again.

In order to encourage the struggling Rousseau, he bought, through Rouquin, a rather startling painting by the young artist, in which a herd of red cattle partook placidly of the skyline and a pallid windmill dominated the foreground. Later on, an expert informed him that the red cattle were rocks on the edge of a pool and the windmill was a lady making ready to dive into the water for a lonely swim. The painting was signed, but the name was not Rousseau. It was Fauret. Rouquin explained the discrepancy. He said that young Rousseau preferred to paint under an assumed name—in truth, it was his maternal grandmother's name—rather than to have his canvases confused with those of the academic, old-school Barbizon painter. He was above trading on a name that was fast becoming obsolete!

Then there came the astonishing disappearance of young Frederick. The third day after Kathleen's departure, Frederick turned up missing. A week passed before the detectives found him in Washington, penniless, half-starved but valiant. He had run away from home to find Kathleen, for, in his fickle heart, he had come to realise that it was she whom he loved and not old Miss Fairweather at all. Extreme hunger and an acute attack of home-sickness dampened his ardent regard for the distant Kathleen, for the time being at least, and he was quite content to return to Seawood, where, after all, he could have all he wanted to eat and at the same time reflect audibly on the fact that he was a real hero.

Envy induced Wilberforce to run away a few days after Frederick returned with his great tales of adventure, privation and gallantry. He got no farther from home than White Plains, and was back at Seawood before nine o'clock at night on the day of his flight, yet he had enjoyed so many hair-raising experiences, rescued so many lovely girls from all manner of perils, and soundly thrashed so many unprincipled varlets, that even Melissa's narratives became weak and puerile when put up against the tales he told to his pop-eyed brothers and sisters. He did not mention the sound thrashing that he sustained at the hands of Mrs. Bingle, however, nor did he attempt to account for the bitter howls that began to issue from behind the closed library doors almost simultaneously with his return to Seawood. These howls, it may be added, had a great deal to do with the decline of enthusiasm among the other boys. Wilberforce's adventure in the library was the one that made the deepest impression on them.

And this summary paddling of young Wilberforce, in direct opposition to the wishes of his foster-father, who would have punished him in a less drastic fashion, brings us to the gravest of Mr. Bingle's worries: the curious change in Mrs. Bingle's attitude toward the children.

From being a loving, kind, sympathetic mother she lapsed into the opposite in every particular. Her querulousness, impatience, even antipathy became more and more marked as the summer advanced and Mr. Bingle, in dire distress, consulted Dr. Fiddler. She scolded incessantly, spanked frequently, complained from morning till night, and suffered headaches, neuritis and kindred ailments to such an extent that the good doctor might well have been pardoned for looking a bit wiser than ever before and suggesting a change of scene and environment for the lady, whose nerves undoubtedly had been affected by the troubles of the past few weeks.

Every one about the place observed and secretly commented on the amazing change in the mistress of the house. The calm, serene, level- headed manager of Mr. Bingle's household had developed into a cranky, dyspeptic tyrant whose pleasure it was to be unfailingly displeased with everything, and who, despite the fact that she was not yet forty- three, declared that she was a broken old woman without the remotest hope of ever seeing a well day again in her life. She was quite positive that she suffered from a dreadful and incurable malady. She knew the symptoms, she had every one of them, and no doctor in the world could convince her to the contrary—so she said. Her greatest desire was to go to Peekskill, where she could find peace and quiet and unutterable relief from the annoyances caused by the little nuisances that Mr. Bingle had taken under his wing. In Peekskill her mother and sister still lived the simple life, and that was what she wanted more than anything else.

Mr. Bingle's gentle argument that he could not go to Peekskill with her met with a petulant response. She made it plain to him that she realised his preference for the children and that she was no longer of any use to him as a companion or helpmate. For her own part, she'd like to see them all in Jericho—meaning the children, of course. All of which shocked and distressed poor Mr. Bingle beyond expression.

"What is it, Doctor? Physically she seems to be all right. Can it be that she is going to pieces mentally? Why, she's always been the most loving, gentle—"

"Nerves, Bingle—plain nerves. She'll be all right in a little while, I'm sure. I'll have a look at her again next week. In the meantime, don't pull such a long face. She is as sound as a dollar physically, as you say. Leave her to me, old fellow. Don't cross her, don't let her see too much of the children, and don't object to her going to visit her mother in—where is it?—if she wants to do so. By the way, Bingle, I wouldn't adopt any more children at present, if I were you. Wait for a year or two and see how she feels about it."

"Would you advise a trip to Europe? We've been contemplating it for the past ten years, but—I'm ashamed to admit it—we're both scared out of our boots when we think of being out there on the Atlantic with two or three miles of water under our beds every night and icebergs floating all around us. We want to see Paris and London, of course. Every one ought to see 'em if he can afford it. If you think it advisable, I'll take her across this summer. Maybe if she got to Paris she'd forget she ever wanted to go to Peekskill."

"I'll let you know what I think of it later on, Bingle. We'll see. I've never seen your garden looking better than it looks this summer. You have a treasure in that man Edgecomb. Come, let's stroll down to the Italian—"

"Not just now, Doctor," said Mr. Bingle hastily. "I think Miss Fairweather and Flanders are down there enjoying the shade and the music of the fountain."

The servant question was another bothersome thing for him to contend with. They were dissatisfied and on the point of leaving, especially the new nursemaids. A general increase in wages served as a temporary restraint, and a second increase was plainly in sight. For the first time in his life Mr. Bingle possessed a secret unshared with his wife: he did not tell her of the raise in wages.

Flanders announced that rehearsals for the play would be started early in July. The company had been chosen and a theatre taken in his own name. Mr. Bingle preferred to remain a silent and unrecognised instrument in the enterprise. He remembered in time that he was a deacon in the church hard by, and was sorely afraid that while his own conscience might be perfectly clear in the matter it wasn't by any means certain that the congregation possessed the same kind of a conscience.

It became necessary, therefore, for Miss Fairweather to give up her place and prepare for the task ahead of her, especially as her role called for a bit of dancing in the second act, demanding considerable preliminary work under the instruction of a teacher. Mrs. Bingle was rather glad to see her go. Secretly she was beginning to mistrust the young lady's intentions where Mr. Bingle was concerned. It was her recently formed opinion that one can never trust an actress, no matter how closely she is watched or how frankly she looks you in the eye while you are watching.

Mr. Bingle called Miss Fairweather and the good-looking Flanders into his study a few days before the time set for her departure. He closed the door carefully behind them and then crossed over to glance out of the window into the garden, where Mrs. Bingle was chatting earnestly with Dr. Fiddler in the shade of a glorious oak. Mr. Bingle had had something on his mind for a long, long time. The fate of Agnes Glenn was at the back of it.

"When do you two expect to be married?" he asked bluntly, taking them both by surprise. They turned quite red and looked at each other in evident dismay.

"Why, we—er—really, Mr. Bingle," began Flanders, "we thought we'd wait until we see how the piece gets over and then—" He looked to the embarrassed Miss Fairweather for help.

"If everything goes well, Mr. Bingle," she said, nervously, "we sha'n't hesitate an instant. Of course, if it is a failure, we'll— well, it really would be wise to wait for a little while until—"

"That's just the thing I want to get at," said Mr. Bingle. "Don't put it off, my friends. Get married here, Miss Fairweather, to-morrow, next day. I am your friend, and yours, Dick. My wedding present shall be—well, I must ask you to leave it to me. I love you both. You have meant a great deal to me. There is nothing I would not do for you, nothing I would not shield you from if it lay in my power to do so. So, I ask you, my friends, to be married here in my house before—" Emotion choked him. He had been standing near the window at the beginning of his disjointed remarks. As they progressed, he approached them with his hands extended.

The young couple grasped his hands and Flanders spoke.

"We can't do it, Mr. Bingle. It is out of the question. I'm sorry— terribly sorry. You are a corker, sir. I—"

"For goodness' sake," began Mr. Bingle, imploringly.

"We would jump at the chance, Mr. Bingle, to be married here, if it were not for one thing," went on Flanders, and then looked at Miss Fairweather.

"And what in the world can that be?" cried Mr. Bingle.

"We were married two months ago, Mr. Bingle," said Mrs. Richard Flanders guiltily.

It was some time before they could make him believe it. She revealed her wedding ring—suspended about her neck—and then Mr. Bingle kissed her very soberly and with tears in his eyes.

"Two months ago!" he said, waveringly. "And God bless my soul, you spent your honeymoon nursing a lot of sick children! Well, well, it beats all! It isn't too late for a wedding present. I'll—"

Flanders interrupted him. "It is too late, sir," he said firmly. "We only ask for your blessing and your good wishes, Mr. Bingle. You have already given us too much. We shall never be out of debt to you. The play, the theatre—"

"Ah, but I haven't spent a nickel on the play, you blundering booby," cried Mr. Bingle heartily. "That is still to come. I want to do something NOW."

"It will come soon enough, sir," said Flanders firmly. "We can't abuse a friendship like yours."

"By George," cried Mr. Bingle; "you are a fine fellow, Dick, as I've always said. You are a gentleman."

"Thank you, sir," said Flanders simply, for he was a gentleman.

On the first day of July the incomparable Diggs gave notice. It was like a clap out of a clear sky.

"My goodness, Diggs, you don't—you CAN'T mean it," gasped Mr. Bingle.

"I do mean it, sir, I'm sorry to say, sir," said Diggs. "It was on my mind to mention the matter last spring, sir, but the hunfortunate quarantine made it quite out of the question. I wish to state, sir, that I would not 'ave left your service at a time like that. You 'ave been the kindest, most thoughtful of masters, sir, and I trust I shall never be the man to go back on a gentleman who—er—I mean to say, sir, a gentleman who deserves the best of treatment from his servants."

"I'm sure I appreciate your good opinion, Diggs. But, tell me, is it a matter of wages? If it is, I think we may be able to arbitrate the question."

"No, sir. Wages has nothing to do with it, sir. My wages 'ave been quite satisfactory, as my savings will prove. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bingle, I 'ave laid by a very neat little sum, which I took the liberty of investing in a small business before giving notice, sir, the hopportunity presenting itself while you were so worried over the sickness that I felt it would be quite wrong to disturb you with my affairs. We 'ave purchased a green-grocer's business in Columbus Avenue—you might call it a sort of general business, fruit, vegetables, hegg—eggs, coal, firewood and vinous liquors, sir. We hexpect to take possession in a fortnight, sir."

"We? Have you a partner?"

"Yes, sir. Watson, sir."

"Watson? Is—is he leaving me, too? Upon my soul, Diggs—this is TOO bad!"

"Yes, sir, it really is. I happreciate what it means, sir, as I told Watson when he gave notice to me. I says to him, says I: 'Watson, Mr. Bingle will 'ave a time of it getting any one to fill your place,' and Watson says to me: 'And what about you, Mr. Diggs?' And I says 'Pooh!'"

"Watson gave notice to you, did he? When did this happen?"

"Yes, sir. The servants usually give notice to the butler. He did it the day we bought out the business, sir," said Diggs, surprised that Mr. Bingle should have asked so simple a question.

"I see. Well, Diggs, I can't tell you how sorry I am to have you go. You have been here for eight years. You are the best butler I've ever known—and the only one, I may as well add. I wish you the best of luck. Shake hands, Diggs. It may interest you to know that I look upon you as the best friend I've ever had. You are the only man I've known in the past ten years who has really treated me as an equal. You've done this, Diggs, knowing full well that by rights I am nothing more than a bookkeeper and never will be more than that, no matter how many millions I may possess. You have made it your business to live down to me, and so I am your debtor. Everybody else, from Mr. Force to the telegraph operator over in the railroad station, looks—but, why go into all this? You are going, and I wish you the best of luck. The same to Watson, too, if you please!"

"I shall mention it to Watson, sir. He will be very much gratified."

"And I may be able to throw quite a little business in your way, Diggs. We shall make it a point to buy our supplies from the firm of— is it to be Diggs & Watson?

"No, sir. It is to be called the Covent Garden Consolidated Fruit Company, sir. There is another little matter I'd like to speak about, Mr. Bingle." Diggs was quite red in the face. "Ahem! I am also compelled to say that Melissa has given notice, sir."

"Melissa! Impossible! Not MELISSA?"

"Melissa Taylor, sir."

"Why, she is the last one that I—" Words failed him. He looked quite helpless in the face of this staggering blow.

"I 'ad a great deal of difficulty, sir, in persuading 'er to leave your employment. She was most determined about it at first, sir."

"You—YOU, Diggs, persuaded her to leave? 'Pon my soul, that was rather a shabby thing to—"

"Oh, I trust you won't look at it in the wrong way, sir," cried Diggs in distress. "Melissa 'as merely consented to become my wife, sire. No offence intended, I hassure you. No underhanded work on my—"

"God bless my soul!" cried Mr. Bingle. "Melissa is going to marry you?"

"Yes, sir. Next Thursday week, sir. And also, sir, I am obliged to announce that Miss Stokes, the first nurse-maid, is to become Mrs. Watson on the same day."

Mr. Bingle sat down again. "My gracious!"

"She also gives notice, sir, through me. Did I thank you, sir, for your generous offer to trade with us when we take over the business? I was that rattled, sir, I fear I forgot to—"

"It is taken for granted, Diggs. And you—you all leave us on the fourteenth of July?"

"If quite convenient, Mr. Bingle."

"The anniversary of the fall of the Bastile," mused the distressed master of the house.

"Oh, I hassure you, sir, that really had nothing to do with it," said Diggs.

"Well, I suppose I shall have to train a new lot to take your places."

"I would suggest that you advance Hughes to the place of butler. He is a very competent man."

"We'll see. And now you may say to the other three members of the Covent Garden Fruit Company that I accept their resignations with regret, and wish all of them joy."

"Thank you, sir. I shall speak to Watson and Miss Stokes, and I shall ask Watson to carry your message to Miss Taylor."

"Can't you attend to that part of it yourself, Diggs?"

Diggs stiffened. "I regret to say, sir, that Miss Taylor and I 'ave had a—what you might describe, sir, as a bit of a tiff. She hasn't permitted me to speak to her since yesterday morning. It will be quite all right, however, to 'ave Watson 'andle the matter. Thank you, sir."

The fifth of July, as usual, came close upon the heels of the one day in the year that men with large families of growing children feel perfectly justified in characterizing as All-Fools' Day. The Bingle youngsters, regardless of their missing antecedents, celebrated the day as unqualified American citizens. They set fire to the stables, shot Roman candles into the kitchen, bounced torpedoes off of the statuary in the gardens, hurled firecrackers great and small at one another, and came through the day with one thumb missing, four faces powder-burnt, and one arm fractured in two places. (Rutherford fell off of the balcony while being chased by an escaped pin-wheel.)

"But," said Mr. Bingle, after relating the horrors of the day to Dr. Fiddler on the morning of the fifth, "I am glad to say that we got through with it alive. How did you find Mrs. Bingle? She was pretty well done-up by the noise."

"She's all right, Bingle. Don't worry. Who is this coming up the drive in such haste?"

Mr. Bingle peered intently over his glasses.

"That? Why, 'pon my soul, Fiddler, that is Mr. Sigsbee. My lawyer, you know. Now, what in the world can be bringing him out here? By George, I—I wonder!" He leaned against a porch pillar, assailed by a sudden weakness.

"You wonder—what?"

"I wonder if the Supreme Court sits on the day after the Fourth of July."

"The Court is late this year in arriving at the summer recess, that much I can tell you. Are you expecting a decision in the case of Hooper et al. vs. Bingle?"

"I am," said Mr. Bingle, mopping his brow, which was wet with a very chilly moisture.



CHAPTER XIV

THE LAW'S LAST WORD

Mr. Sigsbee remained for luncheon. He did not return to the city until late in the afternoon. All day long an atmosphere of gloom, not altogether attributable to reaction from the Fourth, pervaded the house. By that strange, mysterious form of contagion described as "sensing," the servants became infected by the depression; questioning looks were answered by questioning looks; conversation was carried on in lowered tones and confined almost exclusively to matters pertaining to the work in hand; furtive looks were bestowed upon the door of Mr. Bingle's study and, later on, directed with some misgiving upon the closed transom above Mrs. Bingle's bedroom door. To the certain knowledge of the oldest servant on the place, this transom had never been lowered before.

This much was known to three persons: the butler, one of the footmen and Melissa: shortly after the strange gentleman entered Mr. Bingle's study with the master, the mistress and Dr. Fiddler, Mrs. Bingle was led to her room by the doctor and her husband, moaning and wringing her hands. The trained nurse who had come down to take care of Rutherford was hastily summoned to the bedroom, and later on Diggs was instructed to telephone to Dr. Fiddler's office in town with an order to his assistant to send out a second nurse without delay.

At dinner, Mr. Bingle was singularly pale and preoccupied. His doctor and his lawyer talked of the attitude of the Administration at Washington in regard to the Mexican question and other problems in which a keen observer would have remarked that they were not at all interested—and in which Diggs and Hughes certainly had no present interest. They ate quite heartily, as doctors and lawyers are prone to do when the opportunity presents itself. Immediately after dinner they repaired to the study and closed the door. All evening there were telephone conversations with New York and Washington, and frequent visits to Mrs. Bingle's room by the doctor and Mr. Bingle.

At ten o'clock Mr. Bingle walked out upon the moon-lit lawn and gazed about him in all directions, taking in the terraces, the park, the gardens, and last of all the splendid facade of the great house itself. Head gardener Edgecomb approached and to him Mr. Bingle said:

"It was a beautiful place—a beautiful place, indeed," and then straightway returned to the house. Edgecomb, slack grammarian though he was, made note of the fact that he spoke of the house in the past tense, quite as if it were a thing that had ceased to exist.

The children had had their supper when Melissa came down from Mrs. Bingle's room, whither she had been summoned in some haste at five o'clock. She promptly announced that they were to skip off to bed at once as their mother's head was that bad that she was not to be disturbed by the slightest sound. To the inquiries of her fellow- servants, Melissa curtly replied that it was none of their business what had happened and if they had any business they'd better attend to it instead of snooping around the halls trying to find out something that did not in the least concern them.

Melissa knew what had happened. Before eight o'clock that night Miss Fairweather knew, and Flanders also. The great Bingle dream was not the only one to be shattered by the news that the day brought forth.