In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my father shook him cordially by the hand.

“I have brought you this morning’s paper,” said he.  “You will find a full report of Professor Hanky’s sermon, and of the speeches at last night’s banquet.  You see they pass over your little interruption with hardly a word, but I dare say they will have made up their minds about it all by Thursday’s issue.”

He laughed as he produced the paper—­which my father brought home with him, and without which I should not have been able to report Hanky’s sermon as fully as I have done.  But my father could not let things pass over thus lightly.

“I thank you,” he said, “but I have much more to thank you for, and know not how to do it.”

“Can you not trust me to take everything as said?”

“Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not say—­or at any rate try to say—­some part of what I ought to say.”

“Very well; then I will say something myself.  I have a small joke, the only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically upon my wife.  You, and I suppose George, are the only two other people in the world to whom it can ever be told; let me see, then, if I cannot break the ice with it.  It is this.  Some men have twin sons; George in this topsy turvey world of ours has twin fathers—­you by luck, and me by cunning.  I see you smile; give me your hand.”

My father took the Mayor’s hand between both his own.  “Had I been in your place,” he said, “I should be glad to hope that I might have done as you did.”

“And I,” said the Mayor, more readily than might have been expected of him, “fear that if I had been in yours—­I should have made it the proper thing for you to do.  There!  The ice is well broken, and now for business.  You will lunch with us, and dine in the evening.  I have given it out that you are of good family, so there is nothing odd in this.  At lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be there; at dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free as soon as the servants are out of the room.

“I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the streets are empty—­say at midnight—­for the excitement is too great to allow of your staying longer.  We must keep your rug and the things you cook with, but my wife will find you what will serve your turn.  There is no moon, so you and George will camp out as soon as you get well on to the preserves; the weather is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm.  To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues, where George must bid you good-bye, for he must be at Sunch’ston to-morrow night.  You will doubtless get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of your having done so, but this, I fear, may not be.”