"You'll stay right here with me, son," and Rob's hand came down intimately on Ptolemy's shoulder. "It isn't likely we'll turn them out into the woods, when they haven't a roof over their heads," declared Silvia, drawing Emerald to her side. "I think you are absolutely inhuman, Lucien," cried Beth. "I don't see what has changed you so," and she proceeded to make room for Pythagoras in the porch swing. "Did the fire scare you?" asked Miss Frayne gently, as she put her arms about Demetrius. "Et tu, Brute? Well, I plainly see this is no place for an inhuman, childless, married man," I said with a laugh, walking down the veranda. In the doorway I met Diogenes, who raised his chubby arms invitingly. "Up, up, Ocean!" he begged sweetly. I lifted him to my shoulder, and then turned and walked triumphantly back to the family group. "Now," I said, "here is the whole d-dashed family. And I propose that each keep unto his charge the child he has now under his wing." Miss Frayne quickly relinquished the dirty Demetrius. Beth shrank away from Pythagoras. As I seated myself still holding Diogenes, his brothers sprang toward him in greeting, but he spat at one, kicked at another, and pulled the hair of a third, although he patted Ptolemy's cheek gently. "Now, we'll have this affair thrashed out," I declared in my most authoritative, professional manner, and I then proceeded to explain to Silvia the housing of the Polydores, and our strategies to keep their arrival a secret simply on her account. "Because you know," interpolated Beth, with a consideration for the feelings of the young Polydores--a consideration they had never before encountered--"we wanted you to have a nice rest." Silvia looked quite penitent and remorseful for her seeming lack of appreciation of our combined efforts. When I had answered all her inquiries satisfactorily, Miss Frayne's curiosity regarding the progeny of the eminent Polydores had to be fully relieved. "And do you mean that the scribbling lady I saw at the table is really the mother of these five boys?" she asked, unable to grasp the fact. "Yes; and the father hereof is the man who explained the ghosts to you so scientifically that you cannot remember what he said. Now, Ptolemy, we'll hear your story of the fire and the whereabouts of your parents. Take your time and tell it accurately." "Well, you see we did just as you said to, and took the ghost out of the window and went out to the woods early this morning so as not to let the paper lady see us." "Oh!" cried Miss Frayne, "am I the paper lady? I begin to see daylight. Are these boys the ghost perpetrators, and were you in on the put-up job?" "You're a good guesser," I replied. "And why wasn't I taken into your confidence?"