Friend of your uncle. Very sorry. Give you another chance.' You know the kind of thing." "Bar-ney!" cried the four sisters in chorus. But Barney only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "What's the odds? I'm sick of the whole show, anyway. If he thinks I am going to spend my life making out policies he is jolly well mistaken. It's bad enough as it is; I should go cracked if I couldn't have a little fun." The lines came back to his forehead as he spoke, and Philippa regarded him in pained self-reproach. This bright, adventurous spirit was never intended by nature to be chained to an office desk. No wonder that he chafed at confinement, and occasionally broke the bounds. If circumstances would have allowed it, he would have made a resourceful middy, a soldier who would have done good work for his country; but circumstances had not allowed it, and here once more was the round peg in the square hole, here once more the inevitable failure and disappointment. Surely there is no greater wrong that can be done to a young man, no surer way of driving him into temptation, than to set him a lifelong task which he despises and abhors. Philippa determined to consult the Hermit, who was by this time a regular Sunday-night visitor at the flat, and whose understanding of the boy's nature made him a more valuable adviser than the staid elder brother. Perhaps Mr Neil might be able to suggest a way out of the difficulty. For the next few days Theo and Madge took their walks abroad together, and when at home remained shut up in the drawing-room together, whence came peals of mysterious laughter. Sheets of cardboard were smuggled to and fro, and finally taken out of the house and never brought back. In their place, however, appeared two bright half-sovereigns, displayed with huge pride on Madge's outstretched palm.