“He did!” All in falsetto Ludlum sobbed his version of things. “He—he suss-said I had to gug-go up to bed all—all alone. He grabbed me! He hurt! He said I couldn’t interrup’ your ole gug-game! ’N’ he said, ‘I’ll show you!’ ’N’ then—then—then—he _twissud_ my _wrist_!” At that she gathered him closer to her, and rose, holding him in her arms. Her face was deeply flushed, and her shining eyes avoided her husband, who stood near the doorway. “Put him down, Jennie,” he said mildly. “I——” Straightway she strode by him, carrying her child. She did not pause, nor speak aloud, yet Lucius and John both heard the whispered word that crumpled the latter as the curtains waved with the angry breeze of her passing. “Shame!” Meanwhile, Lucius, on his knees—for he never regarded his trousers seriously—began to collect dispersed cards and pegs. “What say?” he inquired, upon some gaspings of his unfortunate friend, John. “She believed it!” (These stricken words came from a deep chair in the shadows.) “She thought I actually did twist his wrist!” “Oh, no,” said Lucius. “She didn’t believe anything of the kind. Darn that peg!” With face to the floor and in an attitude of Oriental devotion, he appeared to be worshipping the darkness under a divan. “She was merely reacting to the bellow of her offspring. She knew he invented it, as well as you did.” “It’s incredible!” said John. “The cold-blooded cunning of it! He was bound to have his way, and make her go up with him; and I’d turned him toward the stairway by his shoulders, and he tried to hold himself back by catching at one of those big chairs in the hall. I caught his wrist to keep him from holding to the chair—and I held him a second or two, not moving. The little pirate decided on the thing then and there, in his mind. He understood perfectly well he could make it all the more horrible because you were here, visiting us. I swear it appals me! What sort of a nature _is_ that?” “Oh,” said Lucius, “just natural nature. Same as you and me.” “I’d hate to believe that!” “You and I got ashamed long ago of the tricks that came in our minds to play,” said Lucius, groping under the divan. “We got ashamed so often that they don’t come any more.” “Yes, but it ought to be time they stopped coming into that boy’s mind. He was eight last month.” “Yes—darn that peg!—there seems to be something in what you say. But of course Luddie thought he was in a fix that was just as bad to him as it would be to me if somebody were trying to make me walk into Pancho Villa’s camp all alone. _I’d_ make a fuss about that, if the fuss would bring up the whole United States Army to go with me. That’s what it amounted to with Luddie.” “I suppose so,” groaned the father. “It all comes down to his being a coward.” “It all comes down to the air being full of queer things when he’s alone,” said Lucius. “Well, I’d like to know what makes it full of queer things. Where does his foolishness come _from_?”