"Where is Bones?" she asked one morning, when the absence of her cavalier was unusually protracted. "With his baby," said her brother. "Please don't be comic, dear. Where is Bones? I thought I saw him with the ship's doctor." The mail had come in that morning, and the captain and surgeon of the s.s. _Boma Queen_ had been their guests at breakfast. Hamilton looked up from his book and removed his pipe. "Do you mean to tell me that Bones has kept his guilty secret all this time?" he asked anxiously. She sat down by his side. "Please tell me the joke. This isn't the first time you have ragged Bones about 'the baby'; even Mr. Sanders has done it." She looked across at the Commissioner with a reproving shake of her pretty head. "Have _I_ ragged Bones?" asked Sanders, in surprise. "I never thought I was capable of ragging anybody." "The truth is, Pat," said her brother, "there isn't any rag about the matter. Bones adopted a piccanin." "A child?" "A baby about a month old. Its mother died, and some old bird of a witch-doctor was 'chopping' it when Bones appeared on the scene." Patricia gave a little gurgle of delight and clapped her hands. "Oh, please tell me everything about it." "It was Sanders who told her of Henry Hamilton Bones, his dire peril and his rescue; it was Hamilton who embellished the story of how Bones had given his adopted son his first bath. "Just dropped him into a tub and stirred him round with a mop." Soon after this Bones came blithely up from the beach and across the parade-ground, his large pipe in his mouth, his cane awhirl. Hamilton watched him from the verandah of the Residency, and called over his shoulder to Patricia. It had been an anxious morning for Bones, and even Hamilton was compelled to confess to himself that he had felt the strain, though he had not mentioned the fact to his sister. Outside in the roadstead the intermediate Elder Dempster boat was waiting the return of the doctor. Bones had been to see him off. An important day, indeed, for Henry Hamilton Bones had been vaccinated. "I think it 'took,'" said Bones gravely, answering the other's question. "I must say Henry behaved like a gentleman." "What did Fitz say?" (Fitzgerald, the doctor, had come in accordance with his promise to perform the operation.) "Fitz?" said Bones, and his voice trembled. "Fitz is a cad!" Hamilton grinned. "He said that babies didn't feel pain, and there was Henry howling his young head off. It was horrible!" Bones wiped his streaming brow with a large and violent bandana, and looked round cautiously. "Not a word, Ham, to her!" he said, in a loud whisper. "Sorry!" said Hamilton, picking up his pipe. "Her knows." "Good gad!" said Bones, in despair, and turned to meet the girl. "Oh, Bones!" she said reproachfully, "you never told me!" Bones shrugged his shoulders, opened his mouth, dropped his pipe, blinked, spread out his hands in deprecation, and picked up his pipe.