had been the amende honourable following on just such a scene
with her aunt as this promised to be. Mr. Pett had no wish to see
the truce thus consummated broken almost before it had had time
to operate.

"I could give the boy a job in my office," he suggested.

Giving young men jobs in his office was what Mr. Pett liked doing
best. There were six brilliant youths living in his house and
bursting with his food at that very moment whom he would have
been delighted to start addressing envelopes down-town.

Notably his wife's nephew, Willie Partridge, whom he looked on as
a specious loafer. He had a stubborn disbelief in the explosive
that was to revolutionise war. He knew, as all the world did,
that Willie's late father had been a great inventor, but he did
not accept the fact that Willie had inherited the dead man's
genius. He regarded the experiments on Partridgite, as it was to
be called, with the profoundest scepticism, and considered that
the only thing Willie had ever invented or was likely to invent
was a series of ingenious schemes for living in fatted idleness
on other people's money.

"Exactly," said Mrs. Pett, delighted at the suggestion. "The very
thing."

"Will you write and suggest it?" said Mr. Pett, basking in the
sunshine of unwonted commendation.

"What would be the use of writing? Eugenia would pay no