A Deal With the Devil. Eden Phillpotts

      We went to Chislehurst, a pretty suburb in which I hoped that grandpapa would occupy himself with the beauties of Nature, and dig in the garden and plant seeds, and watch them come up, and be quiet and good. But though he accompanied me willingly enough to the little red-brick, modern, 'Queen Anne' residence I found there, he refused to dig in the garden, or plant seeds, or be quiet and good.

      It was one of his bad days when I suggested horticultural operations.

      "Seeds be shot!" he said. "I shall set about sowing my wild oats pretty soon--that's the only gardening for me!"

      He had not threatened to paint the town red since we left it, but now his constant allusion to wild oats caused me much uneasiness.

      He was not interested in the works of Nature, but showed a craving to get into society. Nobody called, however, and I was glad enough that people did not come to see us. The longer we were left alone, the longer we should be able to stop there. But grandpapa was now fast reaching an age when no mere passive part on life's stage would suit him.

      "I must be up and doing," he said to me. "'Satan finds some mischief still,' etc.," he added, with an unpleasant laugh. "You know the rest."

      "I only wish you would try and occupy yourself in a profitable way, dear grandpapa," I said, ignoring the allusion, which, to say the least, was unhappy.

      "I'm going to," he answered. "I've got eighteen months yet before I'm fifty. For that period of time we shall be able to stop here. And I'm going to take up pursuits fit for my age. I'm going to do a bit of good if I can."

      It was an answer to my prayers, no doubt. But for all that I could scarcely believe my ears.

      "You are going to teach in the Sunday-school!" I cried with sudden conviction, flinging myself on my knees beside my dear old hero.

      "Get up," he said, "and don't be an idiot. I'm going to run for the Local Board; and if I get on, as I think I shall, I'll raise Cain in this place. We're all asleep here."

      The Chislehurst air, which is bracing, had simply taken years off my grandfather's life, and I was conscious that he would make himself heard on the Local Board pretty loudly if they really elected him. This, I doubted not, was what he meant by the peculiar idiom that he would raise Cain. The old man was always picking up new expressions now. His refined, old-world diction had almost entirely departed from his tongue.