‘Touch, I don’t know,’ he was honest enough to reply.  ’It’s you that haven’t given it a fair chance I’d like to hear it again.  There’s a forest on fire in it.’

‘There is,’ she exclaimed.  ’I have often felt it, but never seen it.  You exactly describe it.  How true!’

‘But any music I could listen to all day and all the night,’ said he.

‘And be as proud of yourself the next morning?’

Patrick was rather at sea.  What could she mean?

Mrs. Adister O’Donnell stepped over to them, with the object of installing Colonel Adister in Patrick’s place.

The object was possibly perceived.  Mrs. Adister was allowed no time to set the manoeuvre in motion.

’Mr. O’Donnell is a great enthusiast for music, and could listen to it all day and all night, he tells me,’ said Miss Mattock.  ’Would he not sicken of it in a week, Mrs. Adister?’

‘But why should I?’ cried Patrick.  ‘It’s a gift of heaven.’

‘And, like other gifts of heaven, to the idle it would turn to evil.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Work, and you will believe it.’

’But, Miss Mattock, I want to work; I’m empty-handed.  It ’s true I want to travel and see a bit of the world to help me in my work by and by.  I’m ready to try anything I can do, though.’

‘Has it ever struck you that you might try to help the poor?’

‘Arthur is really anxious, and only doubts his ability,’ said Mrs. Adister.

‘The doubt throws a shadow on the wish,’ said Miss Mattock.  ’And can one picture Colonel Adister the secretary of a Laundry Institution, receiving directions from Grace and me!  We should have to release him long before the six months’ term, when we have resolved to incur the expense of a salaried secretary.’

Mrs. Adister turned her head to the colonel, who was then looking down the features of Mrs. Rockney.

Patrick said:  ‘I’m ready, for a year, Miss Mattock.’

She answered him, half jocosely:  ’A whole year of free service?  Reflect on what you are undertaking.’

‘It’s writing and accounts, no worse?’

’Writing and accounts all day, and music in the evening only now and then.’

‘I can do it:  I will, if you’ll have me.’

‘Do you hear Mr. O’Donnell, Mrs. Adister?’

Captain Con fluttered up to his wife, and heard the story from Miss Mattock.

He fancied he saw a thread of good luck for Philip in it.  ’Our house could be Patrick’s home capitally,’ he suggested to his wife.  She was not a whit less hospitable, only hinting that she thought the refusal of the post was due to Arthur.

’And if he accepts, imagine him on a stool, my dear madam; he couldn’t sit it!’

Miss Mattock laughed.  ’No, that is not to be thought of seriously.  And with Mr. O’Donnell it would be probationary for the first fortnight or month.  Does he know anything about steam?’