“None for me, mother,” he said desolately. “I couldn’t drink it even if you poured it out. Wonder what’s happened to the boy?” “How should I know?” He walked up and down the room, looked through the window at the iron grating, and rubbed his head furiously with a red pocket-handkerchief, the wife watching him with an amused expression. As she took the knife in order to cut the home-made cake, still warm from the oven, he raised his hand as a feeble protest against asking him to taste food. “Can we have the winder open?” he asked submissively. “This room seems stuffy to me, or else it is that I’m upset. I feel—I feel as though I can’t sit down at this table.” “Suppose,” said his wife, with a wink—“suppose you have a look underneath it.” The boy crawled out, smoothed his hair, and submitted a forehead to his parent; the mother came near to choking with delight at the success of her elaborate scheme, and presently leaned head exhaustedly against the antimacassar which protected the back of the horsehair easy-chair. How on earth had they missed each other?—that was what the delighted father wanted to know. Henry must have jumped out of the train and cut away uncommonly sharp. Henry, permitted under the special circumstances to discard convention and begin with cake, working back through the toast to the bread and butter, confessed that he had lost no time. “But, my lad,” urged his father more seriously, “you knowed that I was coming to meet you.” “Had another fellow with me,” replied the boy. “Oh!”—arresting a doubled piece of bread and butter on its way from the plate—“and didn’t you want him to see me?” “Don’t be silly, father!” interposed the mother. “Henry, my child, ask if you want a second piece.” “It wasn’t exactly that,” said the boy. “Then, perhaps, you’ll kindly tell me what was the reason. Come on, now; out with it! I want an answer.” “Thought perhaps you might kiss me, father. And Watherston standing by.” “Very natural on the boy’s part,” declared the mother. “You forget that Henry’s growing up. He doesn’t mind it in private, but there comes a time when a boy doesn’t want all this fuss in public.” “If that was the only reason—” said the father. “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” ordered his wife. “You never see Henry do it. And one arm off the table, if you please.” Her husband obeyed, taking up an attitude of greater precision and obvious discomfort. “That sounds like Gleeson & Co. going out; I shall have to see about my pail and flannel, and get up there and do their floor.” “I thought—” began the boy sharply. “We decided otherwise, my dear,” she said. “We didn’t settle it in a hurry by any means; your father and me talked it over night after night, and eventually we came to a definite conclusion.”