“I! I have not slept since I leftyou, sir. I have paced my room and” (he read a masterly note) “remorse has paced with me, step by step, hour by hour. Did I help my uncle, I asked myself, when he was selecting this Mrs. Major? No. Was I by his right hand to counsel and advise him? No. Has not my training at hospital, my intercourse with ten thousand patients, taught me to read faces like an open book? It has. Should not I then have been by his side to help him when he selected a woman for the post of caring for our-forgive me, sir, I said 'our'--caring for our cats? I should. I asked myself how I could make amends. Only by begging my uncle's forgiveness for my indifference and by imploring him to let me help him in the choice of the next woman he selects.” A masterly pause he followed with an appeal sent forth in tones of rare beauty: “Oh, sir, I do beg your forgiveness; I do implore you let me make amends by helping you in your next choice.” Mr. Marrapit wiped moist eyes. “I had not suspected in you this profundity of feeling.” George said brokenly: “I have given you no reason.” Mr. Marrapit replied on a grim tone: “Assuredly you have not.” George glanced at Note 6; fled from the danger zone. “Where I fear the mistake was made in Mrs. Major,” he hurried, “was that she was not a perfect lady. Our--forgive me for saying 'our'--our cats are refined cats, cats of gentle birth, of inherent delicacy. Their attendant should be of like breeding. She should be refined, her birth should be gentle, her feelings delicate. She should be a lady.” “You are right,” Mr. Marrapit said. “As sea calleth to sea, as like calleth to like, so would an ebb and flow of sympathy be set in motion between my cats and an attendant delicately born. Is that your meaning?” George murmured in admiration: “In beautiful words that is my meaning.” He paused. Now the bolt was to be shot, and he nerved himself against the strain. He fired: “I have a suggestion.” “Propound.” No further need for notes. George pushed back his cuffs; gulped the agitation that swelled dry and suffocating in his mouth. “This is my suggestion. Because I have had experience in the reading of faces; because I wish to make recompense for my share in the catastrophe of Mrs. Major's presence; because--” “You are drowning beneath reasons. Cease bubbling. Strike to the surface.”