After scratching his head meditatively for some moments, he looked into her comely face with very steady blue eyes and said: “I don't think so--not quite.” “Then,” replied his stepmother angrily, “you are a very stupid little boy--and you must go up to the nursery at once.” This puzzled Jem still more, and he walked upstairs reflecting deeply. Years afterwards, when he was a man, the sunlight falling on the wall through the skylight over the staircase had the power of bringing back that moment to him--a moment when the world first began to open itself before him and to puzzle him. It happened that at that precise time when Mrs. Agar was endeavouring To teach her little stepson the usages of polite society, a small, keen-faced man was standing near the table in the smoking-room in the Hotel Wagstaff at Suez. He was idly turning over the newspapers lying there in the hopes of finding something comparatively recent in date. Presently he came upon a copy of the _Times_, with which he repaired to one of the long chairs on that verandah overlooking the desert which some of us know only too well. After idly conning the general news he glanced at the births, deaths, and marriages, and there he read of the recent ceremony in the parish church of Clapham. “D----n it!” he muttered, with that racial love of an expletive which makes a Jew a profane man. In addition to a strong feeling of wounded vanity that Anna Hethbridge should so soon have forgotten him, Seymour Michael was distinctly disappointed that this heiress should no longer be within his reach. The truth was, that the young lady in India had transferred her valuable affections, with all solid appurtenances attaching thereto, to a young officer in the Navy who had been invalided at Calcutta. To men who intend, despite all and at any cost, to get on in the world the first failures are usually very bitter. It is only those who press stolidly forward without expecting much, who profit from a check. Seymour Michael was just the man to fail by being too acute, too unscrupulous. He was usually in such a hurry to help himself that he never allowed another the very fruitful pleasure of giving. In India his zeal had led him into one or two small mistakes to which he himself attached no importance, but they were remembered against him. He had cruelly thrown aside Anna Hethbridge when a richer marriage offered itself. Now he had missed both bone and reflection, and he sat with a smile on his dark face, looking out over the dreary desert. CHAPTER III MERCURY _The evil is sown, but the destruction thereof is not yet come._ James Edward Makerstone Agar was not at the age of five the material from which the heroes of children's stories are evolved. He was not a good boy, nor a clean, nor particularly interesting. He was, however, honest--and that is _déjà quelque chose_. He was as far removed from the “misunderstood” type as could be wished; and he was quite happy.