it better than I. I always think of you as the curator of my
little collection, Baxter--ha-ha! Mind how you step when you are
in the museum. I was painting a chair there yesterday and I think
I left the paint pot on the floor."

He cast a less amiable glance at his studious son.

"Get up, Frederick, and go and dress for dinner. What is that
trash you are reading?"

The Honorable Freddie came out of his book much as a sleepwalker
wakes--with a sense of having been violently assaulted. He looked
up with a kind of stunned plaintiveness.

"Eh, gov'nor?"

"Make haste! Beach rang the gong five minutes ago. What is that
you are reading?"

"Oh, nothing, gov'nor--just a book."

"I wonder you can waste your time on such trash. Make haste!"

He turned to the door, and the benevolent expression once more
wandered athwart his face.

"Extremely kind of Mr. Peters!" he said. "Really, there is
something almost Oriental in the lavish generosity of our
American cousins."