A baby began to wail; and Ernie turned to see Joe with little Ned in his arms. "Hallo! Joe!" he chaffed. "_My_ baby, I think." He took his own child amid laughter, Joe surrendering it reluctantly. Just then Edward Caspar appeared in the door of the office. He looked at them over his spectacles and said quietly, as if to himself. "It's Law as well. We must never forget that." The Colonel turned to Ernie. "What's he mean?" he asked low.--"Law as well." Ernie, dandling the baby, drew away into a corner where he would be out of earshot of the Archdeacon. "It's a line of poetry, sir," he explained in hushed voice-- "_O, Love that art remorseless Law, So beautiful, so terrible._" "Go on!" said the Colonel, keenly. "Go on!--I like that." But Ernie only wagged a sheepish head. "That's all," he said reluctantly. "It never got beyond them two lines." He added with a shy twinkle--"That's dad, that is." A chocolate-bodied car stopped in the street opposite. Out of it stepped Mr. Trupp. In it the Colonel saw a lean woman with eyes the blue of steel, fierce black brows, and snow-white hair. She was peering hungrily out. "It's mother come after dad," Ernie explained. "In Mr. Trupp's car. That's my brother driving." The old surgeon, crossing the yard, now met the run-agate emerging from the office and took him kindly by the arm. "No, no, Mr. Caspar," he scolded soothingly. "They don't want old fellows like you and me to do the bludgeon business. Our sons'll do all that's necessary in that line." He packed the elderly truant away in the car. Mr. Caspar sat beside his wife, his hands folded on the handle of his umbrella, looking as determined as he knew how. Mrs. Caspar tucked a rug about his knees. Ernie, who had followed his father out to the car, and exchanged a word with his brother sitting stiff as an idol, behind his wheel, now returned to the yard, grinning. "Well!" said Joe. Ernie rolled his head. "Asked Alf if _he_ was goin to sign on?" he grinned. "Is he?" asked the Colonel ingenuously. Ernie laughed harshly. "Not Alf!" he said. "He's a true Christian, Alf is, when there's scrapping on the tape..." At the club a few days later, when the trouble had blown over, the Colonel asked Mr. Trupp if Ernie was ill. "He seemed so slack," he said, with a genuine concern. "So he is," growled the old surgeon. "He wants the Lash--that's all." "Different from his brother," mused the Colonel--"that chauffeur feller of yours. He's keen enough from what I can see." Mr. Trupp puffed at his cigar. "Alf's ambitious," he said. "That's his spur. Starting in a big way on his own now. Sussex is going to blossom out into Caspar's Garages, he tells me. I'm going to put money in the company. Some men draw money. Alf's one." CHAPTER XV THE LANDLORD Alf's great scheme indeed was prospering.