Where is my son--where's my Phineas ?" I fell on his neck as if I had been a child.

And almost as if it had been a child's feeble head, mechanically he smoothed and patted mine.
"Thee art not hurt?
Nor any one ?" "No," John answered; "nor is either the house or the tan-yard injured." He looked amazed.

"How has that been ?" "Phineas will tell you.

Or, stay--better wait till you are at home." But my father insisted on hearing.

I told the whole, without any comments on John's behaviour; he would not have liked it; and, besides, the facts spoke for themselves.