“Don’t try,” interrupted Mrs. Sage. “I want to forget it myself. I say, Herbert, old thing, you can’t make me believe this is Rumley. You are deceiving me. I don’t recognize a single—Oh, yes, I do! I take it all back. I would know that man if I saw him in Timbuktu. The old Johnnie in the car we just passed. It was Gooch—the amiable Gooch—and, my word, what a dust he was raising!” Oliver, pedaling furiously, arrived at the parsonage ten minutes behind the Sages. The minister greeted him as he came clattering up the front steps. “Sh!” he cautioned, his finger to his lips. “Don’t make such a noise, Oliver—if you please. She’s—she’s resting. Sh! Do you mind tiptoeing, lad? Jane and I have got quite in the habit of it the past two weeks. I am happy to see you, my boy. She always rests about this time of the day. You have come out for the senatorship, I hear. Especially if she’s had a train trip or anything like that. Well, well, I hope you will go in with flying colors. If she doesn’t get her rest right on the minute, she has a headache and—” “Where is Jane, Uncle Herbert?” broke in Oliver, twiddling his hat. He was struck by the dazed, beatific, and yet harassed expression in the minister’s eyes—as if he were still in a maze of wonder and perplexity from which he was vainly trying to extricate himself. “Jane? Oh, yes, Jane. Why, Jane is upstairs with her dear mother—helping her with her hair, I think. I am sure she will not be down for some time, Oliver. After the hair I think she rubs her back or something of that sort. Do you mind toddling—I mean strolling—around the yard with me, Oliver? I was on the point of taking Henry the Eighth out for a little exercise—ten minutes is the allotted time, ten to the second. He—” “Henry the what?” inquired Oliver, still gripping the pastor’s hand. “The Eighth,” said Mr. Sage, looking about the porch and shifting the position of his feet in some trepidation. “Bless my soul, what can have become of him? I hope I haven’t been standing on him. I should have squashed him—Ah, I remember! The hatrack!” He dashed into the hall, followed by Oliver, and there was Henry the Eighth suspended from the hatrack by his leash in such a precarious fashion that only by standing on his hind legs was he able to avoid strangulation. “I am so absent-minded,” murmured Mr. Sage, rather plaintively. “Poor doggie! Was he being hanged like a horrid old murderer? Was he—” “Hey!” cried Oliver. “He’s nipping your ankle, Uncle Herbert.” “I know he is,” said Mr. Sage, smiling patiently. “He does it every time he gets a chance. I’m quite used to it by now.” “I’d kick his ugly little head off,” said Oliver. “Oh, dear, no! You wouldn’t kick Henry the Eighth, I’m sure you wouldn’t.”