But her advance was stopped. Jeremy stopped it. Standing in front of
the dog, his short thick legs spread defiantly apart, his fists
clenched, he almost shouted:

"You shan't touch him. . .. No, you shan't. I don't care. He shan't
go out again and die. You're a cruel, wicked woman."

The Jampot gasped. Never, no, never in all her long nursing
experience had she been so defied, so insulted.

Her teeth clicked as always when her temper was roused, the reason
being that thirty years ago the arts and accomplishments of
dentistry had not reached so fine a perfection as to-day can show.

She had, moreover, bought a cheap set. Her teeth clicked. She began:
"The moment your mother comes I give her notice. To think that all
these years I've slaved and slaved only to be told such things by a
boy as--"

Then a very dramatic thing occurred. The door opened, just as it
might in the third act of a play by M. Sardou, and revealed the
smiling faces of Mrs. Cole, Miss Amy Trefusis and the Rev. William
Jellybrand, Senior Curate of St. James's, Orange Street.

Mr. Jellybrand had arrived, as he very often did, to tea. He had
expressed a desire, as he very often did, to see the "dear
children." Mrs. Cole, liking to show her children to visitors, even
to such regular and ordinary ones as Mr. Jellybrand, at once was
eager to gratify his desire.