"Tut, tut!" said Philip, as they left the room and returned to the study; "I am not going to do anything of the kind. I took no notice of the child when I arrived because my head was full of other things."
He went to the boy and raised him in his arms, and pinched his cheek, and patted his hair and kissed him.
"Thank you," said Bramwell. "I feel new blood in my veins and new brains in my head, and a new heart in my body. I intend giving up dreaming for ever. I am now going to try to make a little money. Presently the child will have to be sent to school--to a good school, of course."
"My dear Frank," cried Philip, with tears in his eyes and voice, "it is better to listen to you talk in this way than to hear you had been made a king."
"I am a king," cried the father in a tone of exultation. "I am an absolute monarch. I reign with undisputed sway over my island home, and my subject is my own son, whom I may mould and fashion as I please, and whom no one will teach to despise me."
CHAPTER XIII.
[AN INVITATION ACCEPTED.]
"And so," said Alfred Layard to Hetty the evening of the day little Freddie, now in bed, had made his first visit to the island, "you have absolutely spoken to this Alexander Selkirk. Tell me all about it."
She began, and told him how she went up to her own room and saw Bramwell and the boy in the yard on the island, and how Freddie's cry had betrayed her presence, and in the confusion at being found out she had consented to let their youngster go to play with the other youngster.
"You are not annoyed with me, Alfred, for allowing him, are you?" she asked in some suspense. The little fellow had never before been so long from under her charge.