He had managed it, of course. He was always tactful, and could on occasions be tender and persuasive. These qualities, added to the authority he exerted in his capacity of American child, had in time overcome his mother’s objections to the background, properties, pose, coiffure, and, most difficult of all, the costume he had insisted on--had, in fact, even achieved a sublime finishing touch by having, instead of an ordinary gilt advertisement, the pliable photographer’s name scrawled carelessly in pencil across the margin of his print. Mrs. Dawson had been exceedingly shocked at the result, and had, not unnaturally, failed to recognise herself in the gracious, self-possessed personage who gave one the impression of having sunk into that picturesque seat for a moment, until her carriage should be called. She had speedily regretted, what she from time to time referred to as her “weakness,” and had hastened to exhibit the strength she still retained by breaking the negative with her own hands--not, however, before Dickey had procured some striking proofs of it. The very success of the picture was what made it such a disturbing addition to Dawson’s room. In the appreciation of his friends it had furnished him with precisely the sort of mother to which his eclectic and exotic inclinations seemed to entitle him. He himself, in his more placid moods, derived an indefinable satisfaction from the thing, and was in the habit of sitting before it, musing contentedly on his perfect adaptability to the people and surroundings he had never been used to at home--an adaptability that sometimes caused him to wonder whether he were not, after all, illegitimate or adopted. Ordinarily, however, this fanciful parent of his appeared to him in the light of a cunningly devised, automatic lie that kept on telling itself to make him miserable. Charlie Bolo carefully returned the photograph to its place. His back had been turned to the room and he was, perhaps, the only one of the four men who did not realise the direction every one’s thoughts had taken. “I think I shall have to get rid of that libel on my mother,” mused Dawson, brazenly. “I was so sorry not to find Mrs. Dawson in the afternoon I called,” said Charlie Bolo, passing on to a silver candlestick. “Is she to be long in town?” “So was I,” murmured Bigelow; “Bolo and I went together.” “You must give her a tea,” suggested Tommy, getting up. When he had on his frock coat, he sat intermittently.