scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy
burden into the house.

"Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life
of me!" exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the
matter among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of
toast.




ADRIAN

A CHAPTER IN ACCLIMATIZATION



His baptismal register spoke of him pessimistically as John Henry,
but he had left that behind with the other maladies of infancy,
and his friends knew him under the front-name of Adrian. His
mother lived in Bethnal Green, which was not altogether his fault;
one can discourage too much history in one's family, but one
cannot always prevent geography. And, after all, the Bethnal
Green habit has this virtue--that it is seldom transmitted to the
next generation. Adrian lived in a roomlet which came under the
auspicious constellation of W.

How he lived was to a great extent a mystery even to himself; his
struggle for existence probably coincided in many material details
with the rather dramatic accounts he gave of it to sympathetic