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“You kin give Johnny some.”

“But you haven’t got headache–have you?”

“Me alluz has.”

“Not ALWAYS.”

He nodded his head rapidly. Then added slowly, and with great elaboration, “Et mo’nins, et affernoons, et nights, ‘nd mo’nins adain. ‘N et becker” (i. e., breakfast).

There was no doubt it was the truth. Those eyes did not seem to be in the habit of lying. After all, the medicine could not hurt him. His nurse was at a little distance gazing absently at the sea. I sat down on a bench, and dropped a few of the pellets into his palm. He ate them seriously, and then turned around and backed–after the well-known appealing fashion of childhood–against my knees. I understood the movement–although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I raised him to my lap–with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort–where he sat silently for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him.

“Wouldn’t you like to go and play with those children?” I asked, pointing to a group of noisy sand levelers not far away.

“No!” After a pause, “You wouldn’t neither.”

“Why?”

“Hediks.”

“But,” I said, “perhaps if you went and played with them and ran up and down as they do, you wouldn’t have headache.”

Johnnyboy did not answer for a moment; then there was a perceptible gentle movement of his small frame. I confess I felt brutally like Belcher. He was getting down.

Once down he faced me, lifted his frank eyes, said, “Do way and play den,” smoothed down his smuggler frock, and rejoined his nurse.

But although Johnnyboy afterwards forgave my moral defection, he did not seem to have forgotten my practical medical ministration, and our brief interview had a surprising result. From that moment he confounded his parents and doctors by resolutely and positively refusing to take any more of their pills, tonics, or drops. Whether from a sense of loyalty to me, or whether he was not yet convinced of the efficacy of homoeopathy, he did not suggest a substitute, declare his preferences, or even give his reasons, but firmly and peremptorily declined his present treatment. And, to everybody’s astonishment, he did not seem a bit the worse for it.

Still he was not strong, and his continual aversion to childish sports and youthful exercise provoked the easy criticism of that large part of humanity who are ready to confound cause and effect, and such brief moments as the Sluysdaels could spare him from their fashionable duties were made miserable to them by gratuitous suggestions and plans for their child’s improvement. It was noticeable, however, that few of them were ever offered to Johnnyboy personally. He had a singularly direct way of dealing with them, and a precision of statement that was embarrassing.

One afternoon, Jack Bracy drove up to the veranda of the Crustacean with a smart buggy and spirited thoroughbred for Miss Circe’s especial driving, and his own saddle-horse on which he was to accompany her. Jack had dismounted, a groom held his saddle-horse until the young lady should appear, and he himself stood at the head of the thoroughbred. As Johnnyboy, leaning against the railing, was regarding the turnout with ill-concealed disdain, Jack, in the pride of his triumph over his rivals, good-humoredly offered to put him in the buggy, and allow him to take the reins. Johnnyboy did not reply.

“Come along!” continued Jack, “it will do you a heap of good! It’s better than lazing there like a girl! Rouse up, old man!”

“Me don’t like that geegee,” said Johnnyboy calmly. “He’s a silly fool.”

“You’re afraid,” said Jack.

Johnnyboy lifted his proud lashes, and toddled to the steps. Jack received him in his arms, swung him into the seat, and placed the slim yellow reins in his baby hands.

“Now you feel like a man, and not like a girl!” said Jack. “Eh, what? Oh, I beg your pardon.”

For Miss Circe had appeared–had absolutely been obliged to wait a whole half-minute unobserved–and now stood there a dazzling but pouting apparition. In eagerly turning to receive her, Jack’s foot slipped on the step, and he fell. The thoroughbred started, gave a sickening plunge forward, and was off! But so, too, was Jack, the next moment, on his own horse, and before Miss Circe’s screams had died away.