After a few moments steady staring at the fire, he perceived that a part of the ball of paper had rolled out on to the stone hearth unburned. He looked at it for some while, wondering whether it was worth getting up for. Certainly the warmth was delicious and the sheepskin exquisitely soft. There was no sound from the bed. A complete and absolute silence had succeeded to all the restlessness. Finally he concluded that it was impossible to lie there any longer and watch such a crisp little roll of paper still untorn. He got up, stepped delicately on to the wide hearth, and pulled the paper towards him with a little scratching sound. There was a sigh from the bed, and he paused. Then he lifted it, stepped back to his warm place, lay down, and placing his paws firmly upon the paper, began to tear scraps out of it with his white teeth. "Oh, _be quiet_!" came the weary voice from the bed. He paused, considered; then he tore two more pieces. But it did not taste as it should; it was a little sticky, and too stiff. He stood up once more, turned round four times and lay down with a small grunt. In the morning the maid who swept up the ashes swept up these fragments too. She noticed a wet scrap of a picture postcard, with the word "Selby" printed in the corner. Then she threw that piece, too, into the dustpan. CHAPTER IV (I) Mrs. Partington and Gertie had many of those mysterious conversations that such women have, full of "he's" and "she's" and nods and becks and allusions and broken sentences, wholly unintelligible to the outsider, yet packed with interest to the talkers. The Major, Mr. Partington (still absent), and Frank were discussed continually and exhaustively; and, so far as the subjects themselves ranged, there was hardly an unimportant detail that did not come under notice, and hardly an important fact that did. Gertie officially passed, of course, as Mrs. Trustcott always. A couple of mornings after Frank had begun his work at the jam factory, Mrs. Partington, who had stepped round the corner to talk with a friend for an hour or so, returned to find Gertie raging. She raged in her own way; she was as white as a sheet; she uttered ironical and unintelligible sentences, in which Frank's name appeared repeatedly, and it emerged presently that one of the Mission-ladies had been round minding other folks' business, and that Gertie would thank that lady to keep her airs and her advice to herself.