“Pa!” protested Mrs. Cox, fired by the eyes of her granddaughters.  “Yes—­an’ ’Pa’!” he snarled, pulling on his old hat, and opening the kitchen door.  “But it’ll be Pa on the wrong side of your face if you make any mistake about it!  Jailbird!” he muttered to himself, with a final slam at the door.  The others looked at each other.

“That’s a sweet welcome home,” said Chester, with a bitter laugh.  He was standing, his head lowered; there was bewilderment as well as anger in his look.

“Pa’s got to be a terrible crank,” said Mrs. Cox, returning to her teapot, after a glance through the window at her retiring lord.  “He carries on something terrible sometimes.”

“Well, he won’t carry on any longer as far as I am concerned!” Chester said, a little vaguely.

“I don’t know what’s got into Pa!” his wife complained.

“Don’t you care, Uncle Chess,” Marguerite submitted with timid sympathy.

“Oh, no, sure I don’t care,” the man said with a short laugh.  “Of course it’s nothing to me!  A man comes home to his own folks, he’s had a tough time—­” His voice sank huskily.  The sleeves of his coat were too short for him, and Julia noticed how thin his wrists were, as he gathered up his newspaper clippings and restored them to his inside pocket.  The women watched him in silence.  Presently he stooped down and kissed his mother’s forehead, at the edge of her untidy, grizzled hair.

“Good-bye, Ma!” he said.  “Good-bye, girls!”

“It’ll be a judgment on your father,” Mrs. Cox protested.  “I don’t know what’s gotten into him!”

But she made no further objection; she did not get up from her place at table when Chester crossed the kitchen, opened the street door, and went out.

“Grandpa’s a prince, all right!” said Marguerite then, and Evelyn added, “Wouldn’t it give you a pain?”

“But I notice that none of us did anything about it!” Julia said bitterly.

“If your grandpa found Chess here when he got home to-night, there’d be a reckoning!” the old woman asserted dully.

“And what is Uncle Chess supposed to do?” Julia demanded.

“I betcher he kills himself,” Evelyn submitted.

“I betcher he does,” her sister agreed.

“Well, it’ll be on your grandfather’s head!” the old woman said.  She began to cry, still drinking her tea.

“I wonder if he has any money?” speculated Julia.

“Where’d he get money?” Evelyn said.  Julia, following an uncomfortable impulse, went to the window in the close little parlour and looked out into the street.  It was about six o’clock, and still broad day.  The wind had died down, but the street was dirty, and the glaring light of the sinking sun fell full on the faces of the home-going stream of men and women.  Julia’s quick eye found Chester instantly.  He had loitered no farther than the corner, a hundred feet away, and was standing there, irresolute, stooped, still wearing his look of vague bewilderment.