“Certainly, I shall if you feel like funking it. Have no doubt about that. And I shall do it thoroughly,” said his wife promptly. “Oh, Lord!” groaned the Colonel, as he swiftly visualised the interview. “The poor devil has hell enough now.” “Thank you, Edgar. It is a dainty compliment. But I would rather give him hell, as you so delicately suggest——” “Augusta!” protested the Colonel. “Than allow him to bring hell to my house and family. But that’s my last word. I’m going to sleep.” So saying she gave her back to her husband, snuggled down under the covers and, with a little sigh of content as with a good day’s work well done, settled herself to enjoy the slumber of the just. “And who will tell Paul?” The Colonel’s pitiful appeal broke the long silence. “Well! I must say, Edgar, you are most annoying, breaking in upon one’s sleep that way! Who will tell Paul? I will. Now, go to sleep.” “God help the boy!” muttered the Colonel to his pillow. Then, after a few moments, he said sharply, “I’ll do it myself.” “What?” asked his wife sleepily. Then, quite crossly, “Oh, go ahead and do it, whatever it is.” The Colonel’s monosyllabic reply was indistinct, but rich in emphasis. But as is so frequently the case, the Colonel need not have lost his sleep over the prospect of his unpleasant task, for the job fell into other hands than his. For two days he postponed his visit to Pine Croft, keeping Paul close with him under various pretexts. The third afternoon, reading the weather signs in his wife’s face, he girded his loins and addressed himself to the business assigned him. With a heart full of compassion for the wretched creature he had last seen humped upon the shaggy Indian pony making his hopeless way through the brushwood in the train of what his wife described as “that horrible _menage_,” he rode up to the bungalow in his best military style and whistling a cheerful ditty. So he had ridden upon a Boer entrenchment, at the head of his men, and with a like sensation at the point of junction between stomach and abdomen. He was greeted with a shout from the studio window. “Hello, Pelham, old boy! Right welcome art thou, most gallant knight! Wilt alight and quaff a posset?” There were not lacking signs that the speaker had been indulging himself in several possets during the afternoon. “Ah, Gaspard, you are looking very fit, much better than you were when I saw you last.” “My dear fellow, new worlds are born every day. Richard is himself again. Come in and have something. I feel as a snake must feel when he sloughs off the old and emerges in his brand new skin.”