points of the idea. When I appeared at the cottage, carrying the child, and dumped him down in the sitting room, he showed no joy whatever. The child had started to bellow by this time, not thinking much of the thing, and Freddie seemed to find it rather trying.
“What the devil’s all this?” he asked, regarding the little visitor with a good deal of loathing.
The kid loosed off a yell that made the windows rattle, and I saw that this was a time for strategy. I raced to the kitchen and fetched a pot of honey. It was the right idea. The kid stopped bellowing and began to smear his face with the stuff.
“Well?” said Freddie, when silence had set in.
I explained the scheme. After a while it began to strike him. The careworn look faded from his face, and for the first time since his arrival at Marvis Bay he smiled almost happily.
“There’s something in this, Bertie.”
“It’s the goods.”
“I think it will work,” said Freddie.
And, disentangling the child from the honey, he led him out.
“I expect Elizabeth will be on the beach somewhere,” he said.
What you might call a quiet happiness suffused me, if that’s the word I want. I was very fond of old Freddie, and it was jolly to think that he was shortly about to click once more. I was leaning back in a chair on the veranda, smoking a peaceful cigarette, when