Grant reflected that such implicit and unwarranted confidence implied a great responsibility, and he drove with corresponding care. A mishap now might nip this very delightful little bud of hero-worship.

They turned the end of the furrow with a fine jingle of loose trace-chains, and Prince trotted a little on account of being on the outer edge of the semicircle. The boy clapped his hands again as teddy bounced up and down on the great shoulders.

“Have you a little boy?” he asked, when they were started again.

“Why, no,” Grant confessed, laughing at the question.

“Why?”

There was no evading this childish inquisitor. He had a way of pursuing a subject to bedrock.

“Well, you see, I’ve no wife.”

“No mother?”

“No—no wife. You see—”

“But I have a mother—”