over the boy, and he doesn't care a straw what people might
think who saw the three together. He'll tyrannize over Ellen
- and she'll let him, for the pleasure of being ruled by a man
once more!"

It was a shrewd prophecy and goes to show that women really
understand each other pretty well - women of the same sort.
For Red Pepper Burns did go shopping with the pair from start
to finish. It was an experience he did not see any, occasion
for missing.

"You won't mind my coming, too?" was all the permission he
asked, and Mrs. Lessing answered simply: "Surely not, if you
care to. We shall want your judgment."

She had not conducted them to a department store, but to the
small shop of a decidedly exclusive children's outfitter.
Burns knew nothing about the presumably greater cost of buying
a wardrobe in a place like this, but he soon scented danger.
He scrutinized certain glass showcases containing wax lay
figures of pink-cheeked youngsters attired as for the stage,
and boomed his first caution into his companion's ear.

"That's not the sort of puppet we want to make out of Bob,
eh?" he suggested.

She turned, smiling. "Not unless you intend to keep him in a
glass case, Doctor Burns."

"No long-trousered imitation of a sailor-boy, either, please,"