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my own all the time . . . it makes things feel different. It’s all rather mixed, but I know he did say something about my being a disgrace to them. (I wish I could remember the name and my grandfather was alive when He spoke of him last.) He said he hoped they’d like taking me out of the gutter—or something like that—Sweet father I have Wonder if he’s still alive? He was going pretty hard when we parted—I should think he’d be about there by now! I’d like to meet him again, some time when I’m flush. I used to want to kill him . . . I don’t now. I’d like to hurt him worse than that, only he’s hard to get at, he’s so disgustingly selfish—and shameless. If I thought I was like him I’d kill myself. But I’m not, except to look at. . . .” (Nothing so far had been able to convince Tony that he was anything but an unpleasant object, he detested his father’s features so much.) Now he stretched himself, with a long unguarded yawn that showed his strong white teeth. Five days more to a letter from Robertson—which, of course, might not be there. . . .

It was not there; Robertson had been away from Paranui when Tony’s letter came, and his answer had unavoidably missed several mails. In other ways also Tony’s memories of San Francisco are not agreeable. A specially violent form of influenza was raging there just then; he got it rather badly, and the Minnie S. Garland had to go on without him. When he came out of hospital he was startlingly weak, and work was hard to get. He thought he would make his way across to New York, but he had not realised the distance. Seven years ago he had seemed to go so quickly! But now—“I’ll die of old age if I try to hoof it all the way,” he thought. It was harder—and more dangerous—to get free train journeys here than it had been in France. Tony “jumped the rattler” more than once, but it is a feat that needs a quick eye and a cool head; it could not be attempted too often after he had