The Regent

the Machins was wont to sleep in charge of the nurse who, under the supervision of

ling of the four-fold screen was always a sure sign that Nellie was taking an infantile illness se

, at an angle against a wall behind the door; but when pestilence was abroad, the screen travelled fro

achin, knitting. She was a thin, bony woman of sixty-nine years, and as hard and imperishable as teak. So far as her son knew she had only had two illne

lendid comfort of their home. She existed in their home like a philosophic prisoner-of-war at the court of conquerors, behaving faultlessly, behaving magnanimously

d kept herself and him in the young days of his humble obscurity, and which during sixty year

ut behind a mule collecting other people's rents, and of the glittering days when he burst in on her from Llandudno with over a

otorious pride in him, he still went in fear of that ageless woman, whose undaunted eye always told him that he was still the lad Denry, and her inferior in moral force. The curve of her

her eye

rman!" she murmu

wn cigar out of his hand and reduced him again to the raw, hungry boy of Brougham Stree

ed the high voice of Robert

t to his son t

's bed, while his mother sat lightly

, but trying to face his son as one innocent man may face another-and n

nnounced Robert, proudly, and then

Henry despised and detested as being an inciter of illnes

Robert b

e of his rare loquacious moods, because the chatter not only proved that the dog ha

d the question fell into the tranquillity of the room rather l

that evening Edwar

meddling with m

I only read

ld simply rea

playing a funeral march?

ble of forgiving all. But there were moments when Edward Henry hated moral superiority and Christian meekness in a wife. More

h he had indeed ventured to look at her, he had

e funerals and thing

een playing a funeral march,"

ut the child answered with ruthless gravity and a touch o

lips) appeared to say: "I wish you wouldn't try to be silly, father." However, youth

, Rob

ot to be mauled or dismembered on the pretext of fondness. Similarly, the child had not been baptized after his father, or after any male member of either the Machin or the Cotteril

ped out' mean?"

ion of postage stamps, and in consequence his father's mind, unde

omniscience that a father is bound to assume. "Pos

f this explanati

stamp a fire out with your feet." And he stamped illustra

," said Robert, coldly.

et us show father your leg."

's it. It says in the Encyclopaedia that hydrophobia is stamped ou

dy domestic chamber was strewn in a moment with an awful mass of wounded susceptibilities. Beyond the screen the nick-nick of grandmother's steel needles stopped and started again. It was [

had twice been caught on his stomach on the floor with a vast volume op

," said

piece of unsolicited information he

d Nellie. "How did you

llings last week,

did!" muttere

y crisis was the very obvious truth that Robert

he Encyclopaedia, Robert?" his moth

t," the wondrous infant answered. "Afte

nurse said it had

e knew!" said Robe

rt you now?" Edwa

y I can't go to s

ook at it." Edward He

ed it all up in

nd defenceless, really did touch Edward Henry. It made him feel more like an authentic father than he had felt for a lo

y. In spite of himself he could not keep a c

shed it with carbolic,"

y resented th

as bitten throu

ing the wound hastily, as though Edw

ugh the stocking the animal's teeth co

shut he

o?" Edward Henry deman

n't k

or a piece of information he almost

whether you were teasing the dog

d tearful sympathy for himself. His mouth now began to take strange shapes and t

his tail by his hind leg,"

d his best to s

You'd no business measuring Carlo's tail by his hind leg. You ought to remember that that dog's older

due doubtless to a vagueness in his immediate ancestry, it was impossible to decide whether he had come from the north or the south side of the Tweed. This ageing friend of Ed

ooping to pat the dog. "Did they try

as at once aware that he had done the worst thing. Had not Nellie announced that the dog must be got rid of? And here he was fondly caressing the bloodthirsty dog! With a

where he was misunderstood by [24] women and disdained by infants. He wanted fresh air; he wanted bars, whis

red him and moved not. She had a great gift

the major world. Half-way down the stairs he saw his overc

bedroom door and h

rd He

el

ng the banisters. It was the face of a woman outraged in her

you thi

hink of what

es

know how that kid always heals up quick. You wo

it ought to be ca

d on do

three times in my life by dog

oice slightly as he retreated from her. "And I shall be glad i

under the electric light there, and watching him. He knew that she thought he was cravenly obeying her command. She could have no idea that before she s

e was squalling, and why she should have been in the kitchen at such an hour instead of in bed, he could not guess. But he could gu