Peter shifted his weight uneasily. An invitation to tell a story rarely found him wanting, but he liked to feel that his audience was with him, and in the present instance Mr. Carter's manner was not surcharged with sympathy. "Well, sir," he began, with an apologetic cough, "If ye'll excuse me mentionin' it, them three Brainard boys is young limbs o' Satan, every one o' them. Their badness, so to speak, is catchin', an' Master Bobby's got it. 'Tis demoralizin', sir, to have them about; I'm losin' me own sense o' right an' wrong." "Very well," said Mr. Carter, impatiently, "what I want to hear about is this Indian business." "Yes, sir, I'm comin' to it, sir. Yesterday mornin' I got an order early to drive Mrs. Carter to the country club, an' when I went into the carriage-house to see about hitchin' up, what should I find but them four little div----" Peter caught Mr. Carter's eye, and hastily altered his sentence. "I found the four young gentlemen, sir, dressed in stri-ped bathin' trunks, engaged in paintin' their skins with axle grease ready for the war-path. They'd got two cans on before I seen 'em, and all I done was Master Bobby's back an' Master Wallace's legs. I mistrusted it wouldn't come off, sir, and I told 'em as much; but they was already so nearly covered that it seemed a pity to spoil the sport. Ye see, I was mindin' what their mother said about takin' a sympathetic interest in their innocint divarsions." "And this struck you as an innocent diversion?" "Comparatively speakin', sir. None o' their divarsions strikes me as fittin' for a Sunday-school." "Go on," said Mr. Carter, sharply. Peter fumbled with his hat. He was finding his employer's mood a trifle difficult. "It weren't my fault about the fire, sir. When I drove off they was playin' in the paddock as innocint as ye please. How should I know that as soon as me back was turned they'd be takin' it into their heads to burn Master Augustus at the stake? It ain't no ordinary intilligence, sir, that can keep up wid them. And as for the damage, there wouldn't 'a' been none, aside from losin' the waggon-shed, if it weren't for that meddlin' fire department. Ye see for yerself the mess they made." He came to a sudden pause, and then added with an air of reviving cheerfulness: "'T was bad, sir, but it might have been worse. We saved the buckboard, an' we saved the garden tools, to say nothin' o' Master Augustus." Mr. Carter grunted slightly, and a silence followed, during which Peter glanced tentatively toward the door; but as his companion gave no sign that the interview was at an end, he waited. Mr. Carter's eye had meanwhile travelled back to the paper, and his frown was gathering anew. He finally faced the groom with the deliberative air of a counsellor summing up a case. "And you think it consonant with the dignity of my position that a New York paper should be able to print such a statement as that in regard to my son?"