“Did I ever tell you that all the players in that hockey-match turned up again, one after another, to say how sorry they were I was ill? I thought it so awfully decent of them! It helped a lot, I can tell you. Saunders _did_ say that, if only I had stayed in my place, he could have done all the work and perhaps saved me something, but that’s--well--just Saunders, isn’t it?--and he brought me a book on the actinic force of light, to cheer me up a bit when I was getting better. Do _you_ know anything about the actinic force of light? Neither did I till I met Saunders, but I do now. I learned it up to talk to him. The little curate said that he had saved my life, and that I owed him a penny bun. Harriet was very angry--you’ve no idea! She said there was plenty of food in the kitchen, and that he had done nothing but sit still while a motor-car took him somewhere, and that anybody, even an idiot or a parson, could have done _that_. The curate said the point was that he was the body on the spot. It was his motto. In the family, he said, like dear old Stubbs. I like him. He lent me a novel by--perhaps I had better not say it out loud. The others were all awfully kind, too. I liked them. I remarked to Harriet one day that they seemed to be really keen on music up here, and she just snorted. She said: ‘You don’t imagine, do you, that they care a straw about your being a singer, any more than I do? They’re simply stuck on you because you stole that goal!’ Edgar wasn’t a bit pleased--were you, old man?--and Gardner said awful things, but I think I liked it.” “He is the Great Quetta!” Edgar put in, with a note of indignation in his deep, curious voice. Wiggie laughed. “Do you know that they say I may--perhaps--be able to sing again, in a year’s time? I’ve still a half-crown or two in the toe of a stocking, and Edgar’s got a post somewhere where they waggle their fingers instead of their tongues, so the babies won’t starve yet awhile. We’ll keep the pot boiling, somehow, but I do not think I shall ever be the Great Quetta again.” Edgar uttered an exclamation of angry pain, and his brother smiled at him affectionately. Blenkinship’s Marget came up and handed him a medicine-glass, and he finished the tail of the smile on her. “What does it matter? Anyhow, I can always teach; and the Little Great Quetta will keep us all out of the Workhouse when we’re old! You must hear him sing, Lancaster. He has the true singer’s throat, and cords like the harp of all the winds. Perfect ear, of course. Even the Quetta-lings, shrieking themselves hoarse over there, have _that_. He will be the Greatest Quetta some day, please God, and make up to Edgar for his poor old ears, and to me for all the poor other things that have gone wrong in my inside--won’t he, old man?” “He looks very sensitive,” Lanty observed, watching the child.