John Valiant felt an odd beating of the heart and a tightening of the throat, for he saw another [Pg 27]scene, too. It was the one hushed and horrible night, after the spell had failed and the door had refused to open for a long time, when dread things had been happening that he could not understand, when a big man with gold eye-glasses, who smelled of some curious sickish-sweet perfume, came and took him by the hand and led him into a room where his father lay in bed, very gray and quiet. The white hand on the coverlet had beckoned to him and he had gone close up to the bed, standing very straight, his heart beating fast and hard. “John!” the word had been almost a whisper, very tense and anxious, very distinct. “John, you’re a little boy, and father is going away.” “To—to Wishing-House?” The gray lips had smiled then, ever so little, and sadly. “No, John.” “Take me with you, father! Take me with you, and let us find it!” His voice had trembled then, and he had had to gulp hard. “Listen, John, for what I am saying is very important. You don’t know what I mean now, but sometime you will.” The whisper had grown strained and frayed, but it was still distinct. “I can’t go to the Never-Never Land. But you may sometime. If you ... if you do, and if you find Wishing-House, remember that the men who lived in it ... before you and me ... were gentlemen. Whatever else they were, they were always [Pg 28]that. Be ... like them, John ... will you?” “Yes, father.” The old gentleman with the eye-glasses had come forward then, hastily. “Good-night, father—” He had wanted to kiss him, but a strange cool hush had settled on the room and his father seemed all at once to have fallen asleep. And he had gone out, so carefully, on tiptoe, wondering, and suddenly afraid. [Pg 29] CHAPTER IV THE TURN OF THE PAGE John Valiant stirred and laughed, a little self-consciously, for there had been drops on his face. Presently he took a check-book from his pocket and began to figure on the stub, looking up with a wry smile. “To come down to brass tacks,” he muttered, “when I’ve settled everything (thank heaven, I don’t owe my tailor!) there will be a little matter of twenty-eight hundred odd dollars, a pass motor and my clothes between me and the bread-line!” Everything else he had disposed of—everything but the four-footed comrade there at his feet. At his look, the white bulldog sprang up whining and made joyful pretense of devouring his master’s immaculate boot-laces. Valiant put his hand under the eager muzzle, lifted the intelligent head to his knee and looked into the beseeching amber eyes. “But I’d not sell you, old chap,” he said softly; “not a single lick of your friendly pink tongue; not for a beastly hundred thousand!”