ridicule. He ran on with beating heart, with quickening breath and sobs that rose in his throat one after another like bubbles, breaking because he ran so fast. He was in Kensington High Street, among the thickening crowds of people. He seemed to hear pursuing shouts and mocking laughter. At last he saw a policeman whose tunic he clutched desperately. “What’s all this about?” demanded the constable. “Please, my name is Charles Michael Saxby Fane and I live at 64 Carlington Road and I want to go home.” Michael burst into tears and the policeman bent over and led him by a convulsed hand to the police station. There he was seated in a wooden chair, while various policemen in various states of undress came and talked kindly to him, and in the end, riding on the shoulder of his original rescuer, he arrived at the tall thin house from whose windows Nurse was peering, anxious and monkey-like. There seemed to be endless talk about his adventure. All day the affair was discussed, all day he was questioned and worried and scolded and threatened. Treats faded from possible granting for months to come. Restrictions and repressions assumed gigantic proportions, and it was not until Nanny went upstairs to put Stella to bed and left Michael in the kitchen with Mrs. Frith and Annie that his adventure came to seem a less terrible breach of natural law. Away from Nurse, the cook and the housemaid allowed a splendid laxity to gild their point of view. “Well, what a fuss about nothing,” said Mrs. Frith comfortably. “I declare. And what was _she_ doing? That’s what some people would like to know. You can’t lose a child the same as you might lay down a thimble. I call it very careless.” “Yes. What a shame!” Annie agreed. “Supposing he’d of been run over.” “He might of been run over a dozen times,” said Mrs Frith. “It’s all very fine to put all the blame on the poor child, but what was _she_ doing?” Then Mrs. Frith closed her right eye, tightened her mouth and very slowly nodded her head until the most of her pleated chin was buried in the bib of her apron. “That’s what I thought,” said Annie mysteriously. “What did you think, Annie?” Michael asked fretfully. “She thought you hadn’t no business to be so daring,” said Mrs Frith. “But there! Well! And I was daring myself. Very daring _I_ was. Out and about. Hollering after boys. The slappings I’ve had. But I enjoyed myself. And if I sat down a bit tender, that’s better than a sore heart, I used to think.” “I expect you enjoyed yourself,” said Annie. “I was one of the quiet ones, I was. Any little trip, and I was sick.” “Couldn’t bear the motion, I suppose?” Cook enquired. “Oh, it wasn’t the travelling as did it. It was the excitement. I was dreadfully sick in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral.”