“No,” Johnny agreed amiably; “no, of course not.”  Then, after a long pause, as if he had just made sure of the fact, “It is cool in here.”

It was, very; it might even have been called cold and raw, for there had not been a fire there for days, but the Captain did not move, and Johnny, stooping by the fire-place, examined the register of the chimney, fondly believing in his own impenetrable deceptiveness.

“I can’t help thinking it ought to be shut,” he observed, looking thoughtfully up the chimney; “the rain will come down; it might rain a good deal if the wind were to drop.”

“The wind is not going to drop for hours,” the Captain snapped; “it is getting higher.”

A great gust rumbled in the chimney as he spoke, and flung itself with the thud of a palpable body against the window-pane.  Mr. Gillat heard it; he could not well do otherwise.  “Still,” he said, “it might rain; one never knows.”

He took hold of the register with the tongs and tried to shut it.  It was obstinate, and he pulled this way and that, working in his usual laborious and conscientious way.  At last it slipped and he managed to get it jammed crossways.  Thus he had to leave it, for Captain Polkington, apparently cool enough now, wandered back into the kitchen.

Mr. Gillat, of course, followed and arranged and rearranged pots on the stove till the Captain said he had left his handkerchief up-stairs.  Stairs were trying to his heart, so Johnny had to go for it.  Up he went as fast as he could, and came down again almost faster, for he tumbled on the second step and slipped the rest of the way with considerable noise and bumping.

After that Captain Polkington gave up his efforts to get rid of his guard and resigned himself to fate.  At least, so thought Mr. Gillat, who no amount of experience could instruct in the guilt of the human race in general and the Polkingtons in particular.  The first hour of Julia’s absence had passed when Johnny went into the back kitchen to clean knives.  He left the door between the rooms open, but from habit more than from any thought of keeping an eye on his charge.  They had been talking in the ordinary way for some time now, the Captain sitting so peacefully by the fire that Mr. Gillat had begun to forget he was supposed to watch.  And really it would seem he was justified, for the Captain, of his own accord, left the easy-chair and followed him into the back kitchen, standing watching the knife-cleaning.  He had been talking of old times, recalling far back incidents regretfully; he continued to do so as he watched Johnny at work until he was interrupted by a loud sizzling in the kitchen.

“Hullo!” he said, “there’s a pot boiling over!” and he made as if he would go to it but half stopped.  “It is the big one,” he said, “perhaps you had better take it off; I’m not good at lifting weights now-a-days.”

“No, no!” Johnny said hastily; “don’t you do it, you leave it to me,” and he hurried into the kitchen to take from the fire a pot which, had he only remembered it, had not been so near the blaze when he left it.