Sir Everard tried to evince a proper amount of interest in so important an announcement. "What o'clock were you born, William?" pursued Humphrey, addressing the shy young footman at the side-board, where he had retreated with the dish-cover, and from whence he was making all sorts of signs to his tormentor, in the vain hope of putting an end to the conversation. Sir Everard hastily held out a bit of turbot on the end of his fork, and effectually stopped the boy's mouth for a few minutes; but no sooner had he swallowed it, than he broke out again. "What are you going to give William for his birthday present, father?" he said, putting his arms on the table, and resting his chin upon them, that he might the more conveniently look up into his father's face, and await his answer. Lower and lower bent Uncle Charlie's head over his plate, and his face became alarmingly suffused with color. "I know what he'd like," finished Humphrey, "for he's told me!" The unhappy footman snatched up a dish-cover, and began a retreat to the door; but the inexorable butler handed him the lobster sauce, and he was obliged to advance with it to his master's side. "I said to him to-day," proceeded Humphrey, in all the conscious glory of being in William's confidence, "If father were to give you a birthday present, what would you like? You remember, don't you, William? And then he told me, didn't you, William?" The direct form of attack was more than flesh and blood could stand. William made a rush to the door with the half-filled tray and, in spite of furious glances from the butler, disappeared, just as Uncle Charlie gave it up as a bad job, and burst out laughing. "You must not talk quite so much at dinner, my boy," said Sir Everard, when the door was shut; "your uncle and I have not been able to say a word. I assure you," he added in an under tone to his brother-in-law, "these children keep me in constant hot water; I never know what they will say next." When the servants reappeared the gentlemen, to William's relief, were talking politics; and Humphrey was devoting his energies to digging graves in the salt, and burying therein imaginary corpses, represented by pills he was forming from his father's bread. "Will you come and help me with my dinner, next week, Charlie?" said Sir Everard; "I am going to entertain the aborigines, and I shall want a little assistance. It is now more than two years since I paid my constituents any attention, and I feel the time has come." "What long words," said Humphrey, _sotto voce_, as he patted down the last salt grave, and stuck a bit of parsley, that had dropped from the fish, on the top of the mound. "Father," he went on, "what are abo--abo--" "Aborigines?" finished Uncle Charlie. "Wild men of the woods, Humphrey; half human beings, half animals." "And is father going to have them to dinner?" exclaimed Humphrey, in great astonishment.