It was through some sympathy of this kind that I first gained Johnnyboy's good graces. I had been presented with a small pocket case of homoeopathic medicines, and one day on the beach I took out one of the tiny phials and, dropping two or three of the still tinier pellets in my hand, swallowed them. To my embarrassment, a small hand presently grasped my trouser-leg. I looked down; it was Johnnyboy, in a new and ravishing smuggler suit, with his questioning eyes fixed on mine. “Howjer do dat?” “Eh?” “Wajer do dat for?” “That?--Oh, that's medicine. I've got a headache.” He searched the inmost depths of my soul with his wonderful eyes. Then, after a pause, he held out his baby palm. “You kin give Johnny some.” “But you haven't got headache--have you?” “Me alluz has.” “Not ALWAYS.” He nodded his head rapidly. Then added slowly, and with great elaboration, “Et mo'nins, et affernoons, et nights, 'nd mo'nins adain. 'N et becker” (i. e., breakfast). There was no doubt it was the truth. Those eyes did not seem to be in the habit of lying. After all, the medicine could not hurt him. His nurse was at a little distance gazing absently at the sea. I sat down on a bench, and dropped a few of the pellets into his palm. He ate them seriously, and then turned around and backed--after the well-known appealing fashion of childhood--against my knees. I understood the movement--although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I raised him to my lap--with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort--where he sat silently for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him. “Wouldn't you like to go and play with those children?” I asked, pointing to a group of noisy sand levelers not far away. “No!” After a pause, “You wouldn't neither.” “Why?” “Hediks.” “But,” I said, “perhaps if you went and played with them and ran up and down as they do, you wouldn't have headache.” Johnnyboy did not answer for a moment; then there was a perceptible gentle movement of his small frame. I confess I felt brutally like Belcher. He was getting down. Once down he faced me, lifted his frank eyes, said, “Do way and play den,” smoothed down his smuggler frock, and rejoined his nurse. But although Johnnyboy afterwards forgave my moral defection, he did not seem to have forgotten my practical medical ministration, and our brief interview had a surprising result. From that moment he confounded his parents and doctors by resolutely and positively refusing to take any more of their pills, tonics, or drops. Whether from a sense of loyalty to me, or whether he was not yet convinced of the efficacy of homoeopathy, he did not suggest a substitute, declare his preferences, or even give his reasons, but firmly and peremptorily declined his present treatment. And, to everybody's astonishment, he did not seem a bit the worse for it.