Peter knew that he was. Pat was no longer gasping and in a few minutes he was asleep. For a time Peter sat beside the bed. The child's breathing was regular and his cheek was cool to the touch. "Why, he's fine now," Miss Haine told him. "You go to bed. In the morning you won't even know that he's been sick." There was no trace of the shadow upon Pat next day. Peter was the haggard one. Something had gone out of him during the night as he held Pat in his arms. Father and child were doing as well as could be expected. CHAPTER XIII At the age of eleven months and eight days Pat walked for the first time. Peter thought he might have been considerate enough to have chosen a Sunday. His first tooth came on a Sunday, but that wasn't any fun. Besides, it couldn't be tied exactly to some particular day and minute the way that the walking could. Nor was there any gaiety about it. However, Peter did not quite miss the walking for he came in time to see the last couple of hundred yards. It was a rainy Saturday and Peter happened home early. Kate met him in the hall with a finger at her lips. "He's walking." She seemed to feel that if anybody said anything about it the child would probably grow self-conscious and collapse. There appeared to be a certain sagacity in that. It was not an experiment but an adventure. One step led to another. At terrific speed Pat went round and round the room. He might have been Bobby Walthour trying to steal a lap in a six day race. Kate and Peter watched him breathlessly from behind the curtains of the living-room. "How long has this been going on?" Peter wanted to know. "It's these ten minutes." Peter pulled out his gold stop watch and created thereby a psychic crisis. Perhaps Pat felt that his amateur standing was in jeopardy. At any rate he tripped on the edge of a rug, almost turned a somersault, blacked his eye and cried for half an hour. He did not even attempt to walk again for a week. After that it became habitual. Up to this time Peter had never said much to anybody about his son. He did not talk to the men at the office about the child. There wouldn't be any sense in interrupting Charlie Hall in the middle of a story about city politics with, "My son's got two teeth." They were all busy men and it was not conceivable that they would care how much Pat Neale weighed. Walking was a little different. Maybe it wasn't exactly a first page story but still Peter wanted to tell somebody about it. For the first time he was disposed to show off Pat--in person. Of course eleven months and eights days wasn't a record. Peter would have to look into that and find out the best accepted performance. He remembered being told that his own brother had walked at eight months but he had no means of knowing whether or not that was authentic.