the new conditions, and adapted himself to them without a murmur!
When the military spirit was abroad, who so ready to be a

squadron of cavalry, a horde of Cossacks, or artillery pounding
into position? He had even served with honour as a gun-boat,

during a period when naval strategy was the only theme; and no
false equine pride ever hindered him from taking the part of a

roaring locomotive, earth-shaking, clangorous, annihilating time
and space. Really it was no longer clear how life, with its

manifold emergencies, was to be carried on at all without a
fellow like the spotty horse, ready to step in at critical

moments and take up just the part required of him.
In moments of mentaldepression, nothing is quite so

consoling as the honest smell of a painted animal; and
mechanically I turned towards the shelf that had been so long the

Ararat of our weather-beaten Ark. The shelf was empty, the Ark
had cast off moorings and sailed away to Poplar, and had taken

with it its haunting smell, as well as that pleasant sense of
disorder that the best conducted Ark is always able to impart.

The sliding roof had rarely been known to close entirely. There
was always a pair of giraffe-legs sticking out, or an elephant-

trunk, taking from the stiffness of its outline, and reminding us
that our motley crowd of friends inside were uncomfortably

cramped for room and only too ready to leap in a cascade on the
floor and browse and gallop, flutter and bellow and neigh, and be

their natural selves again. I think that none of us ever really
thought very much of Ham and Shem and Japhet. They were only

there because they were in the story, but nobody really
wanted them. The Ark was built for the animals, of course--

animals with tails, and trunks, and horns, and at least three
legs apiece, though some unfortunates had been unable to retain

even that number. And in the animals were of course included the
birds--the dove, for instance, grey with black wings, and the

red-crested woodpecker--or was it a hoo-poe?--and the insects,
for there was a dear beetle, about the same size as the dove,

that held its own with any of the mammalia.
Of the doll-department Charlotte had naturally been sole chief

for a long time; if the staff were not in their places to-day, it
was not I who had any official right to take notice. And yet one

may have been member of a Club for many a year without ever
exactly understanding the use and object of the other members,

until one enters, some Christmas day or other holiday, and,
surveying the deserted armchairs, the untenanted sofas, the

barren hat-pegs, realizes, with depression, that those other
fellows had their allotted functions, after all. Where was old

Jerry? Where were Eugenie, Rosa, Sophy, Esmeralda? We had long
drifted apart, it was true, we spoke but rarely; perhaps,

absorbed in new ambitions, new achievements, I had even come to
look down on these conservative, unprogressive members who were

so clearly content to remain simply what they were. And now that
their corners were unfilled, their chairs unoccupied--well, my

eyes were opened and I wanted 'em back!
However, it was no business of mine. If grievances were the

question, I hadn't a leg to stand upon. Though my catapults were
officially confiscated, I knew the drawer in which they were

incarcerated, and where the key of it was hidden, and I
could make life a burden, if I chose, to every living thing

within a square-mile radius, so long as the catapult was restored
to its drawer in due and decent time. But I wondered how the

others were taking it. The edict hit them more severely. They
should have my moral countenance at any rate, if not more, in any

protest or countermine they might be planning. And, indeed,
something seemed possible, from the dogged, sullen air with which

the two of them had trotted off in the direction of the
raspberry-canes. Certain spots always had their insensible

attraction for certain moods. In love, one sought the orchard.
Weary of discipline, sick of convention, impassioned for the

road, the mining camp, the land across the border, one made for
the big meadow. Mutinous, sulky, charged with plots and

conspiracies, one always got behind the shelter of the
raspberry-canes.

. . . . . . .
"You can come too if you like," said Harold, in a subdued sort of

way, as soon as he was aware that I was sitting up in bed
watching him. "We didn't think you'd care, 'cos you've got to

catapults. But we're goin' to do what we've settled to do, so
it's no good sayin' we hadn't ought and that sort of thing, 'cos

we're goin' to!"
The day had passed in an ominous peacefulness. Charlotte and

Harold had kept out of my way, as well as out of everybody
else's, in a purposeful manner that ought to have bred suspicion.

In the evening we had read books, or fitfully drawn ships and
battles on fly-leaves, apart, in separate corners, void of

conversation or criticism, oppressed by the lowering tidiness of
the universe, till bedtime came, and disrobement, and

prayers even more mechanical than usual, and lastly bed itself
without so much as a giraffe under the pillow. Harold had

grunted himself between the sheets with an ostentatious pretence
of overpowering fatigue; but I noticed that he pulled his pillow

forward and propped his head against the brass bars of his crib,
and, as I was acquainted with most of his tricks and subterfuges,

it was easy for me to gather that a painful wakefulness was his
aim that night.

I had dozed off, however, and Harold was out and on his feet,
poking under the bed for his shoes, when I sat up and grimly

regarded him. Just as he said I could come if I liked, Charlotte
slipped in, her face rigid and set. And then it was borne in

upon me that I was not on in this scene. These youngsters had
planned it all out, the piece was their own, and the

mounting, and the cast. My sceptre had fallen, my rule had
ceased. In this magic hour of the summer night laws went for

nothing, codes were cancelled, and those who were most in touch
with the moonlight and the warm June spirit and the topsy-

turvydom that reigns when the clock strikes ten, were the true
lords and lawmakers.

Humbly, almost timidly, I followed without a protest in the wake
of these two remorseless, purposeful young persons, who were

marching straight for the schoolroom. Here in the moonlight the
grim big box stood visible--the box in which so large a portion

of our past and our personality lay entombed, cold, swathed in
paper, awaiting the carrier of the morning who should speed them

forth to the strange, cold, distant Children's Hospital, where
their little failings would all be misunderstood and no one

would make allowances. A dreamyspectator, I stood idly by
while Harold propped up the lid and the two plunged in their arms

and probed and felt and grappled.
"Here's Rosa," said Harold, suddenly. "I know the feel of her

hair. Will you have Rosa out?"
"Oh, give me Rosa!" cried Charlotte with a sort of gasp. And

when Rosa had been dragged forth, quite unmoved apparently,
placid as ever in her moonfaced contemplation of this comedy-

world with its ups and downs, Charlotte retired with her to the
window-seat, and there in the moonlight the two exchanged their

private confidences, leaving Harold to his exploration alone.
"Here's something with sharp corners," said Harold, presently.

"Must be Leotard, I think. Better let HIM go."
"Oh, yes, we can't save Leotard," assented Charlotte,

limply.
Poor old Leotard! I said nothing, of course; I was not on in

this piece. But, surely, had Leotard heard and rightly
understood all that was going on above him, he must have sent up