question. We've no one like your brother--I may go so far as that."

"You've probably more persons like his wife," Miss Ambient desolately
smiled.

"I can tell you that better when you've told me about her point of
view."

"Oh yes--oh yes. Well," said my entertainer, "she doesn't like his
ideas. She doesn't like them for the child. She thinks them
undesirable."

Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient's
arcana I was particularly in a position to appreciate this
announcement. But the effect of it was to make me, after staring a
moment, burst into laughter which I instantly checked when I
remembered the indisposed child above and the possibility of parents
nervously or fussily anxious.

"What has that infant to do with ideas?" I asked. "Surely he can't
tell one from another. Has he read his father's novels?"

"He's very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she
can't begin to guard him too early." Miss Ambient's head drooped a
little to one side and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity. Then
of a sudden came a strange alteration; her face lighted to an effect
more joyless than any gloom, to that indeed of a conscious insincere
grimace, and she added "When one has children what one writes becomes
a great responsibility."