indicate that the child should be given up.  He muttered something, indeed, about impotent nonsense, which seemed to imply that the threat could be of no avail; but there was none of that reassurance to be obtained from him which a positive promise on his part to hold the bairn against all corners would have given.  Mrs Outhouse told her niece more than once that the child would be given to no messenger whatever; but even she did not give the assurance with that energy which the mother would have liked.  ’They shall drag him away from me by force if they do take him!’ said the mother, gnashing her teeth.  Oh, if her father would but come!  For some weeks she did not let the boy out of her sight; but when no messenger had presented himself by Christmas time, they all began to believe that the threat had in truth meant nothing, that it had been part of the ravings of a madman.

But the threat had meant something.  Early on one morning in January Mr Outhouse was told that a person in the hall wanted to see him, and Mrs Trevelyan, who was sitting at breakfast, the child being at the moment upstairs, started from her seat.  The maid described the man as being ‘All as one as a gentleman,’ though she would not go so far as to say that he was a gentleman in fact.  Mr Outhouse slowly rose from his breakfast, went out to the man in the passage, and bade him follow into the little closet that was now used as a study.  It is needless perhaps to say that the man was Bozzle.

‘I dare say, Mr Houthouse, you don’t know me,’ said Bozzle.  Mr Outhouse, disdaining all complimentary language, said that he certainly did not.  ’My name, Mr Houthouse, is Samuel Bozzle, and I live at No. 55, Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough.  I was in the Force once, but I work on my own ‘ook now.’

‘What do you want with me, Mr Bozzle?’

’It isn’t so much with you, sir, as it is with a lady as is under your protection; and it isn’t so much with the lady as it is with her infant.’

‘Then you may go away, Mr Bozzle,’ said Mr Outhouse, impatiently.  ’You may as well go away at once.’

‘Will you please read them few lines, sir,’ said Mr Bozzle.  ’They is in Mr Trewilyan’s handwriting, which will no doubt be familiar characters leastways to Mrs T., if you don’t know the gent’s fist.’  Mr Outhouse, after looking at the paper for a minute, and considering deeply what in this emergency he had better do, did take the paper and read it.  The words ran as follows:  ’I hereby give full authority to Mr Samuel Bozzle, of 55, Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough, to claim and to enforce possession of the body of my child, Louis Trevelyan; and I require that any person whatsoever who may now have the custody of the said child, whether it be my wife or any of her friends, shall at once deliver him up to Mr Bozzle on the production of this authority, Louis Trevelyan.’  It may be explained that before this document had been written there had been much correspondence on the subject