IT falls to some to be born, as they say, with a silver spoon in their mouths, and the witty have made play with the thought that the wise child chooses rich parents.

Sam Branstone lacked the completeness of that wisdom. He was born in one of those disconsolate streets of Manchester down which the stranger, passing by tram along a main road, hardly more delectable than its offshoots, looks and shudders; but was born with this difference from the many—that he was son to Anne Branstone, a notable woman, and wisdom may be conceded him for the discrimination of his choice.

If, however, it was Anne who gave him birth and started him in life, it was Mr. Councillor Travers who set him on his way from the mean street of his birth and started his career, and the circumstance which led to the intervention of Mr. Travers was due, not to Anne, but to the occupation of Tom Branstone.

Sam’s father, Tom, was a porter at Victoria Station, Manchester, and there was just time between morning and afternoon school for young Sam to snatch a meal himself and to carry his father’s dinner to him in a basin tied up in a bandanna handkerchief. In those days Victoria was an open station and a favourite dinner-hour lounge with boys from the neighbouring Grammar School. The attractions were partly the trains, partly the large automatic machines which delivered a packet of sweet biscuits in return for a penny. First one lunched frugally on the biscuits and pocketed the balance of one’s lunch allowance to buy knives and other essentials, then one savoured the romance of a large station from which trains went to Blackpool and to the Yorkshire moors. Often one saw sailors on the through trains from Liverpool to Newcastle. One found secluded ends of platforms and ran races with luggage trucks. One was rather a nuisance, especially when one wrestled hardily at the platform’s giddy edge and a train came in.

Sam, as a porter’s son, was on the other side of the fence. He did not lark at Victoria Station, and took his opinions of those who did from his father, adding, perhaps, a touch of jealousy against these chartered libertines who wore the silver owl upon their caps of dual blue.

That day he had delivered Tom’s dinner to him in the porters’ room and was retracing his steps down the platform when he saw two of the Grammar School boys emerge in a confused whirl of battle and sag, interlocked, towards the line, hopelessly unconscious in their struggle of an incoming train. They reached the edge, deaf to all warning cries, and long before help could reach them, fell over it in one entangled mass. One boy, aroused to a sense of their common danger, was on his feet nimbly enough and across the line to safety: the other, Lance Travers, stayed where he fell, with a leg broken against the rail. Wits left the first lad; he could only howl as the engine swept inexorably on, and adult help, though active, could not avail in time. Sam had no precise recollection of what followed, and certainly acted on impulse. He dived to the line and dragged the injured boy across, escaping death for both by the skin of his teeth.

After that, all was confusion: an ambulance; inquiries; names taken and so on; and Sam only came to himself when he discovered that he was being punished for arriving late at school. It struck him as unfair, but he did not realize that he was a hero till the evening paper told him so. He, Samuel Branstone, had his name in the paper! Glory could go no further, because those were the dark ages of journalism, before the photograph illustrated all, and to read one’s name in print was then the apogee. We have moved since those dull days, when “heart interest” was still to be in vented.

What profound satisfaction Anne Branstone found in that sober paragraph her son was not to know. She did not think it good for him to know, but she went about her house with softened eyes, and Sam heard her singing more than once; so per haps he may have guessed that she was pleased with him.

It was more than she allowed Mr. Oscar Travers to guess, he was Lance’s father, an estate agent with a good suburban practice, and Anne met him at the door in a way which would have marred Sam’s future had Travers not known that Lancashire women are apt to be undemonstrative. She found a portly gentleman on the doorstep and thought he wore a patronizing air. They resent patronage in Lancashire.

As a matter of fact, Travers had come to see what he could do for the lad who had saved his boy’s life. That may be patronage, but he was thinking of it as the barest decency.

“Good evening,” he said; “my name is Travers.”

“This is a nice upset,” she said, without inviting him to come in. “How’s your son?”

“He’s doing very well, thank you.”

“Oh? Well, it’s more than he deserves.”

He did not argue that. “I wonder,” he said, “if you would allow me to come in, or would you prefer me to return when your husband is at home?”

“He’s at home now. It’s his early night. He’s having his tea.”

“Shall I return when he has finished?” asked Travers with a nice tactfulness. He knew the curious delicacy against being seen eating by one of a superior class, as if that natural function were a deed of shame. But Anne was for short cuts and she never considered Tom’s feelings overmuch.

“If you’ve owt to say,” she said, “you’d better come in and get it over.”

“I have something to say,” said Travers, entering. “Ah,” he added, as he caught sight of Sam, “this is——?”

“It’s him,” Anne interrupted. She might have been identifying a criminal.

“May I shake your hand?” he asked, and shook it heartily, ignoring Anne’s muttered protest that the hand had not been washed for hours. “I think you’re a very plucky lad.” He could have, said more than that, and felt that as an expression of his gratitude it was hopelessly inadequate, but Anne’s eyes forbade effusiveness, and he wanted to propitiate Anne. He had something to propose which he had thought they would agree to rapturously, but was not so sure about the rapture now. For some reason, he had imagined that Sam would be one of a large family and was disappointed to find no evidence of other children about the room A large family would have made his proposal more certain of acceptance.

“Any brothers and sisters, Sam?” he asked; but Sam was tongue-tied, while Anne was silently but unmistakably asking Travers what business of his that was. However, Tom knew his place. Travers belonged with the tipping public, whose questions one answered.

“He has an elder sister, sir. Our Madge. She works out.” She was, in fact, a general servant.

Travers felt his confidence ebb fast, both at this information and at Anne’s austere disapprobation of Tom’s communicativeness. He felt it was suggested to him that his visit was irrelevant, that Anne, this small woman, not uncomely, with her hands on her hips, and her black hair tightly combed into a ridiculous knob at the back, was, in fact, a rock, and that the impulses and desires of the two hulking men, Travers and Tom Branstone, would break in ineffectual foam against her adamantine resolution.

She glared formidably, hating a “fuss,” judging Travers, who had invaded her home for the purpose of making a fuss.

“Indeed,” said Travers, marking time and hardly attempting to conceal his dismay. The longer he spent in Anne’s presence, the more uneasy he became. She seemed to divine his purpose, and to be telling him silently what she thought of him for having such a purpose. He had, indeed, banked on a large family; porters, he had felt certain, were prolific, and you may subtract one child from a family of ten without much heart-burning, whereas an only son is a serious matter. But time brought no graciousness to Anne’s attitude. She even ignored the sacred rites of hospitality; though tea was on the table, she had not asked him to have a cup. So he gave up temporizing and decided to broach his purpose at once, before Anne reduced him to complete incoherence.

“Of course,” he said, “you know me already as Lance’s father. I don’t know whether you happen to have heard of me beyond that?” Anne admitted nothing, and as it was to her he spoke, it did not matter that Tom, who had naturally spent a gossipy afternoon, was trying to signify that he realized the importance of Travers. “I’m an estate agent, if you understand what that means.”

Anne nodded grimly. “Rent-collector said big,” she defined.

“Well,” said Travers, intending to suggest an amended definition and then thinking better of it. “Well, yes. I’m in the Council, too, you know. Well, now, Mrs. Branstone, I happen to be a widower and Lance is my only son. He means a great deal to me, and when I think how near I came to losing him this afternoon, how certainly I had lost him hut for the splendid presence of mind of this young hero here, I feel I owe a debt which I can never hope to pay.”

“Mr. Travers,” said Anne, “least said is soonest mended, and debts that you can never hope to pay are best forgotten. It’s a kindly thought of yours to come and look us up to-night, but I’m not in the Council, and I’m no great hand at listening to long speeches. By your leave, we’ll take the rest as said.”

“By all means, Mrs. Branstone, so far as expressing my thanks goes. But I have a suggestion to make. Lance, as I said, is my only son. He’s a lonely boy, and he’d be the better for a companion of his own age about the house. I was wondering if you would allow Sam to come and live with us? I should send him with Lance to the Grammar School, and I think I can promise that his future will be secured.”

Sam’s heart gave a great leap. He, Sam Bran-stone, a Grammar School boy, one of the elect, the Olympians whose play he had envied from afar! He looked at Anne with glittering eyes, faint with hope.

“Sam,” she said, “Mr. Travers wants you to leave us. He’s offering to adopt you as his son. Tell him the answer.”

Anne never doubted that she was mistress of her house, and perhaps she did not doubt it now, but, for Sam, a child with the dreadful sensibility of a child, this moment when she demanded calmly, implacably, in the interests of discipline, that he should himself pronounce sentence on his soaring hopes was of a pitiable bitterness which brought him near the breaking-point. At one moment, to be raised to the heavens of ecstasy, and at the next to be cast down to the blackest hell of despondency; to be promised all, and to be expected to refuse! He was not more callous than any other child, and Anne knew perfectly well that a Land of Heart’s Desire had been opened to him. It was not fair, and she knew that it was not fair, to ask him to speak the word of refusal; but she thought that it was good for him, and once she had, by her tone, if not by her actual words, indicated the reply which she required, she knew that he would suppress his leaping hopes and answer, in effect, that home, be it ever so humble, was home, and parents, whatever their status, were parents. He had a wild impulse to defy her, to tell her that he would come to see her on Saturday afternoons, that to wear the cap with the silver owl was the dearest ambition of his life, but he knew that it was hopeless. Even at such a moment as this, and with such an ally as Mr. Travers, he dared not challenge Anne. Her ascendancy was what it had always been, absolute. He shuffled unhappily and tried to meet Mr. Travers’ eye bravely, but succeeded only in looking up as far as the second button of his waistcoat.

“No,” said Sam Branstone, hero, and fled, a heartbroken, tear-washed child, to hide his face and choke his sobs upon his pillow. And he was named for valour in the evening paper!

“No,” repeated Anne, when he had gone, and added, anticipating argument, “I’m a woman of few words.”

Travers knew he was fighting a losing engagement, but he had a shot in the locker yet, and a hardy determination not to be worsted by the likes of Anne Branstone. His pride was up, a pride which, over and above his benevolence and his sense of the fitness of things, would not allow him to regard the saving of his son’s life lightly. Travers counted, the saviour of the son of Travers counted. He had offered to lift Sam Branstone in one way, and if they would not let him do it in that way, he would do it in another. Sam Branstone, willy nilly, was going to be lifted.

“I suppose,” he said, covering the retreat from his first position, “that it is of no use pointing out to you the advantages which my proposal offers to your son?” She shook her head. “Come, Mrs. Branstone,” he went on, conscious that it was no use and platitudinous at that, “we all have to make sacrifices for our children.”

“I make them,” said Anne curtly. It was true.

“Yet you will not make this?”

She was thoughtful for a moment, and Travers began to hope that he was making an impression. “I’m sure that it’s Genesis twenty-two,” she said, “but I disremember the verse.”

“Genesis,” he repeated, mystified.

“Abraham and Isaac,” she explained her allusion. “Some sacrifices aren’t looked for from us, and the Lord sent an angel to say so in those days, but I’ve to be my own angel in these.”

“But Abraham,” he said, “was going to sacrifice his son to the Lord.”

“And I won’t,” she said, conveying her opinion of Travers, who had tried to “come God Almighty over her,” as she expressed it later to Tom. But Travers was not to be rebuffed. He had come to play Providence to Sam (and so far granted that her allusion was apposite), but his providence could compromise. He wasn’t an absolute Jehovah.

“If Sam may not be Lance’s home companion,” he said, “at least let them be school companions. Let me pay his fees at the Grammar School, and——” He was going to add “for appropriate clothes,” but something in Anne’s attitude told him that he had gone far enough, and he stopped short with the completion of his sentence in mid air.

Anne believed in education. She wasn’t convinced that a Grammar School education was superior, as education, to a Parish School, but its associations were. It gave a chance of “getting on” which transcended anything the Parish School could offer. It was a start in life which set one automatically above the lower rungs of the ladder.

“Yes,” she said, but said it with a difficulty which Travers noted and, indeed, applauded. He was Lancastrian himself, and honoured her for her independence. He knew the mother-pride, the fierce individualism which she had subdued before she had consented to take a favour even for her son who earned it, and wasted no more words. “I’m glad,” he said. “Good night,” and, shaking hands, was gone.

“Finish your tea, Tom,” she said to her husband who had suspended operations during the interview. “I want to clear away.” She stood a moment pensively. “I’m a weak woman,” she decided.

Tom Branstone ate his tea, reserving judgment.