Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really believe your success has turned his head." "The boy--what boy? My success--? Explain yourself, Susan!" "It's only that Jack has--has borrowed some money--which he can't repay. But you mustn't think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since the success of your book he has been asked about so much--it's given the children quite a different position. Millicent says that wherever they go the first question asked is, 'Are you any relation of the author of "The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud of the book; but it entails obligations which you may not have thought of in writing it." The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the study-table which he had just successfully defended from the camera of the _Inglenook_. He took up an envelope bearing the name of a popular weekly paper. "I don't know that the _Inglenook_ would help much," he said, "but I suppose this might." Mrs. Linyard's eyes glowed with maternal avidity. "What is it, Samuel?" "A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the Round-the-Gas-Log column of _The Woman's World_. I believe that journal has a larger circulation than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion." He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been so easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely production of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to get Mrs. Linyard out of the room by promising further reinforcements. The Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's suggestion that he should follow up his success by a second volume on the same lines. He had sworn not to lend more than a passive support to the fraud of "The Vital Thing"; but the temptation to free himself from Mrs. Linyard prevailed over his last scruples, and within an hour he was at work on the Scientific Sermons.