possibly be truthful incidentally.' For which she deserved credit, as the holder of a commendable ideal. Her son Warren knew that this walk was of the nature of an orgie. The curve of his mother's fine lips would alone have conveyed that to him. The set of his own evinced a little amusement; the scene to him was ordinary enough, and there seemed to him to be a good many rather obnoxious people about. People, obnoxious or agreeable, were not to him copy, unless he wanted to paint them. His dark, clever face missed the ideality of his mother's; his speculative eyes saw a good deal more. Outside a café a noisy group lounged. One of them was reading something aloud from a paper; it seemed to be amusing. An explosion of laughter interrupted the stuttering voice of the reader, as the Venables passed. The reader, glancing up, looked Warren Venables full in the face. Then the stuttering voice went on. More laughter exploded. 'What are they reading?' Mrs. Venables wondered, as they left the group behind them. 'Oh, some rotten thing....' Warren Venables looked abstracted for a moment or two. Then he jerked back his head, in sudden enlightenment. 'That was it--he was in my house in my last year at school. An infant with a horrid stutter; I used to lick him for it; never knew whether it was meant for cheek or not.... What was his name, now?' He pondered it. 'What are you talking about, Warren? Look at that girl. What a striking face! The features of the Moor and the spirit of the Greek.... Did you see some one you know, dear boy?' 'Yes--the man reading; I was at school with him in my last year, but I can't think of his name.... Crevequer, that's it.... Now, that's funny, rather,' he mused. 'The young man reading, Warren?' 'That's the one. I knew him by his stutter, chiefly--and the blazer. He knew me, too, or half thought he did. Seems to be amusing himself pretty well. Do you remember, mother, you said something about my seeing after him, more or less, when he went to school? You'd met his father, or knew about him in some way. I suppose that was why I felt I had to lick him for his stutter; I don't remember that I ever had much other intercourse with him.'