So the cab rolled away, and Paul went up to the drawing-room, where, although he certainly allowed the fireworks on the balcony and in the garden to languish forgotten on their sticks, he led all the other revels up to an advanced hour with jovial _abandon_ quite worthy of Dick, and none of his little guests ever suspected the change of host. When it was all over, and the sleepy children had driven off, Paul sat down in an easy chair by the bright fire which sparkled frostily in his bedroom, to think gratefully over all the events of the day--events which were beginning already to take an unreal and fantastic shape. Bitterly as he had suffered, and in spite of the just anger and thirst for revenge with which he had returned, I am glad to say he did not regret the spirit of mildness that had stayed his hand when his hour of triumph came. His experiences, unpleasant as they had been, had had their advantages: they had drawn him and his family closer together. In his daughter Barbara, as she wished him good-night (knowing nothing, of course, of the escape), he had suddenly become aware of a girlish freshness and grace he had never looked for or cared to see before. Roly after this, too, had a claim upon him he could never wish to forget, and even with the graceless Dick there was a warmer and more natural feeling on both sides--a strange result, no doubt, of such unfilial behaviour, but so it was. Mr. Bultitude would never after this consider his family as a set of troublesome and thankless incumbrances; thanks to Dick's offices during the interregnum, they would henceforth throw off their reserve and constraint in their father's presence, and in so doing, open his eyes to qualities of which he had hitherto been in contented ignorance. * * * * * It would be pleasanter perhaps to take leave of Mr. Bultitude thus, as he sits by his bedroom fire in the first flush of supreme and unalloyed content. But I feel almost bound to point out a fact which few will find any difficulty in accepting, namely, that, although the wrong had been retrieved without scandal or exposure, for which Paul could not be too thankful, there were many consequences which could not but survive it. Neither father nor son found himself exactly in the same position as before their exchange of characters. It took Mr. Bultitude considerable time and trouble to repair all the damage his son's boyish excesses had wrought both at Westbourne Terrace and in the City. He found the discipline of his clerks' room and counting-house sorely relaxed, and his office-boy in particular attempted a tone towards him of such atrocious familiarity that he was indignantly dismissed, much to his astonishment, the very first day. And probably Paul will never quite clear himself of the cloud that hangs over a man of business who, in the course of however well regulated a career, is known to have been at least once "a little odd."