"Sounds very like blarsphemy to me," said Purvis, "like doubtin' the word of God. I'm for sending him to school." Deane Elmer had been regarding the face of the small abstracted child with considerable interest. He put aside for the moment the grocer's intimation of his voting tendency. "How many elements are known to chemists?" asked Elmer of the examinee. "Eighty-one well characterised; others have been described," replied the Wonder. "Which has the greatest atomic weight?" asked Elmer. "Uranium." "And that weight is?" "On the oxygen basis of 16--238·5." "Extraordinary powers of memory," muttered Elmer, and there was silence for a moment, a silence broken by Squire Standing, who, in a loud voice, asked suddenly and most irrelevantly, "What's your opinion of Tariff Reform?" "An empirical question that cannot be decided from a theoretical basis," replied the Wonder. Elmer laughed out, a great shouting guffaw. "Quite right, quite right," he said, his cheeks shaking with mirth. "What have you to say to that, Standing?" "I say that Tariff Reform's the only way to save the country," replied Squire Standing, looking very red and obstinate, "and if this Government----" Challis rose to his feet. "Oh! aren't you all satisfied?" he said. "Is this Committee here to argue questions of present politics? What more evidence do you need?" "I'm not satisfied," put in Purvis resolutely, "nor is the Rev. Mr. Crashaw, I fancy." "He has no vote," said Challis. "Elmer, what do you say?" "I think we may safely say that the child has been, and is being, provided with an education elsewhere, and that he need not therefore attend the elementary school," replied Elmer, still chuckling. "On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is that what you put to the meeting?" asked Purvis. "This is quite informal," replied Elmer. "Unless we are all agreed, the question must be put to the full Committee." "Shall we argue the point in the other room?" suggested Challis. "Certainly, certainly," said Elmer. "We can return, if necessary." And the four striking figures of the Education Committee filed out, followed by Crashaw and the stenographer. Challis, coming last, paused at the door and looked back. The Wonder had returned to his study of Spinoza. Challis waved a hand to the unconscious figure. "I must join my fellow-children," he said grimly, "or they will be quarrelling." VI But when he joined his fellow-children, Challis stood at the window of the morning-room, attending little to the buzz of voices and the clatter of glasses which marked the relief from the restraint of the examination-room. Even the stenographer was talking; he had joined Crashaw and Purvis--a lemonade group; the other three were drinking whisky. The division, however, is arbitrary, and in no way significant.