“But I thought the outdoor air was just the thing for him. I'm sure your scientific hygienic nonsense says _that!_” “They do--they did--that is, some of them do,” acknowledged Billy, worriedly; “but they differ, so! And the one I'm going by now says that Baby should always sleep in an _even_ temperature--seventy degrees, if possible; and that's exactly what the room in there was, when I left him. It's not the same out here, I'm sure. In fact I looked at the thermometer to see, just before I came out myself. So, Aunt Hannah, I'm afraid I'll have to take him back.” “But you used to have him sleep out of doors all the time, on that little balcony out of your room,” argued Aunt Hannah, still plainly unconvinced. “Yes, I know I did. I was following the other man's rules, then. As I said, if only they wouldn't differ so! Of course I want the best; but it's so hard to always know the best, and--” At this very inopportune moment Master Bertram took occasion to wake up, which brought even a deeper wrinkle of worry to his fond mother's forehead; for she said that, according to the clock, he should have been sleeping exactly ten and one-half more minutes, and that of course he couldn't commence the next thing until those ten and one-half minutes were up, or else his entire schedule for the day would be shattered. So what she should do with him for those should-have-been-sleeping ten minutes and a half, she did not know. All of which drew from Aunt Hannah the astounding exclamation of: “Oh, my grief and conscience, Billy, if you aren't the--the limit!” Which, indeed, she must have been, to have brought circumspect Aunt Hannah to the point of actually using slang. CHAPTER XXIV. A NIGHT OFF The Henshaw family did not return to the Strata until late in September. Billy said that the sea air seemed to agree so well with the baby it would be a pity to change until the weather became really too cool at the shore to be comfortable. William came back from his fishing trip in August, and resumed his old habit of sleeping at the house and taking his meals at the club. To be sure, for a week he went back and forth between the city and the beach house; but it happened to be a time when Bertram, Jr., was cutting a tooth, and this so wore upon William's sympathy--William still could not help insisting it _might_ be a pin--that he concluded peace lay only in flight. So he went back to the Strata. Bertram had stayed at the cottage all summer, painting industriously. Heretofore he had taken more of a vacation through the summer months, but this year there seemed to be nothing for him to do but to paint. He did not like to go away on a trip and leave Billy, and she declared she could not take the baby nor leave him, and that she did not need any trip, anyway. “All right, then, we'll just stay at the beach, and have a fine vacation together,” he had answered her.