"No! Frankly, I'm not."
"Well, well, we must wait for more evidence, before we argue about it," said Challis, but they sat on over the breakfast-table, waiting for the child to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered over the topic of his intelligence.
"Half-past ten?" Challis ejaculated at last, with surprise. "We are getting into slack habits, Lewes." He rose and rang the bell.
"Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it," suggested Lewes. "Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary illustrations."
"We shall see," replied Challis, and then to a deferentially appearing Heathcote he said: "Has Master Stott come this morning?"
"No, sir. Leastways, no one 'asn't let 'im in, sir."
"It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past two days' reading," said Challis, as he and Lewes made their way to the library.
"Oh!" was all Lewes's reply, but it conveyed much of impatient contempt for his employer's attitude.
Challis only smiled.
When they entered the library they found the Wonder hard at work, and he had, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested by Lewes, for he had succeeded in transferring the Dictionary volumes to the chair, and he was deep in volume one, of the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.