"Last year's! Thought you had only been farming two months?"......"Yes, but I bought one calf with her mother." "Three pair of twins first season! Great Caesar--what luck! What did you pay for the farm?"......"Six thousand, two hundred and fifty." "Cash?"......"Cash." "The devil! You must be well fixed?"......"Oh,--so, so." "How'd you make it?"......"Emperor stock." "Emperor! You must have been in on the ground floor?"......"Ground floor." "Oh Lord! How many men do you keep?"......"Just one." "What do you have to pay him?"......"Three hundred a year." "Must be a nice place for children. How many have you?"......"Five." (This was theoretically correct. Paul had invented two sisters and two brothers, all invisible, to play with. A man's family should be screened from publicity, and this reply seemed to make Paul strictly impersonal. He did not ask me how many wives I had.) Now I looked upon this person as a man whom I would never meet again, never having met him before, and I parted from him with joy after having answered every question that he asked to his satisfaction, also to my own. I did not dream of entering a maze that would exhaust my ingenuity to find my way out of without ignominiously crying for help. But before I was done with Griggs I recalled many things of which I had never seen the full significance before. One was a tract I had read in my youth entitled, "The First False Step." Another was a remark that Marion had once made in anger: that I would say anything, without regard to veracity or the immediate future, to avoid unpleasantness. I had got her to retract the assertion to a certain extent by professing to be deeply wounded, as indeed I was, but I saw now that she knew me better than I knew myself. Two days later, on my next trip to the city, I found Griggs awaiting me in my office. "Hello, old man!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I haven't been able to sleep since I saw you--can't think of anything but getting out to see your farm. Why, Carton, what's--what the dev"---- "Stand back," I cried warningly, with averted face and outstretched arm--"keep well away! I'm--I'm in trouble. My boy--my boy--" I sank into my chair and covered my face with my hands. Griggs staggered back. "Which one?" he gasped. "_Which_--oh,--ah--Andrew," I answered despairingly. "He broke out last night--I'm afraid it's--" I bowed my head. "It's _what_?" demanded Griggs, moving rapidly away. "Scarlet fever," I groaned. Griggs vanished. "Say, Carton," he called out, from the other side of the door, "awfully sorry. Other kids all safe?" I laughed--a hard metallic laugh--I knew it sounded like that, for I seemed to stand off and listen. Griggs didn't wait to hear more. "Hell!" he ejaculated, and his heavy footsteps pounded the stairs.