head of injury by calling upon a young gentleman of nine, who apparently was not going to Eton next term, and whose person was held together by a single button, to explain the absence of his shoes and stockings.
"Aren't got none, lidy."
"Why haven't you?"
"Ain't 'ad none, lidy, since mother was put away for doin' in father a year lawst Boxin' night."
"I daresay it is quite a good reason," said Mary Caspar, "if only it could be translated into English. What did your mother do to your father?"
"'E come 'ome ravin', and mother throwed a paraffin lamp at him, and the judge give her ten years."
Mary Caspar opened her purse and produced the hundredth part of her week's salary.
"Never let me see you again without your boots—or your stockings, either."
The recipient looked at the sovereign doubtfully. Then he looked up at the donor.
"Lidy," he said, depositing this incredible wealth in some inaccessible purlieus of his late father's waistcoat, "you're a toff."
The heir to the barony was rather silent as they turned up Bedford Street. He was, of course, a drone in the hive, but he sometimes indulged in the pernicious habit of turning things over in his mind.
"There's something wrong, you know, somewhere.
