Though it was past eleven, the little urchin Charlie insisted on clambering on to Mr Drift's knee, to hear one last story, and the little girls besieged their uncles, and put their arms round their necks, and besought their intercession with mamma to gain them another half-hour's respite down stairs.
"Charlie," said Tom Drift, "this little fellow is worrying me for a story.

Suppose you tell one." "Oh yes," shouted that small chorus.

"Oh yes! papa, please tell us a story ?" "Hear, hear!" said Uncle Joe.
"Fire away," said Uncle Jim.
"Remember, it must be quite a short one, Charles," said mamma.
Charlie Newcome the elder looked puzzled for a minute, and fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat.
Then he turned to his eldest boy, and said,-- "Tom, open that cabinet there and bring me the watch that is under the glass-case." "The old, ugly watch, papa ?" asked the boy, running off on his errand.
"Yes, the old, ugly watch," said papa, with a queer sort of smile.
The boy brought me.

I was taken out of my case, and lay there in his open hand.
"Once upon a time," began papa--and what a hush fell on that little company!--"once upon a time there was a little boy,"-- why was it everyone but the children looked so grave?
and why did Mr Drift push his chair back into the shadow?
why, even, did papa's voice tremble now and then as he went on, and caught the eye first of one and then another of his listeners?
That night he told my story--not as I have told it to you.

There was not much about Mr Drift in the story he told, and a great deal less about himself than there might have been.