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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Just William, by Richmal Crompton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Just William
+
+Author: Richmal Crompton
+
+Illustrator: Thomas Henry
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2010 [EBook #34414]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUST WILLIAM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    JUST--WILLIAM
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM, CLASPING AN EMPTY ACID DROP BOTTLE TO HIS BOSOM,
+WAS LEFT TO FACE MR. MOSS. (_See page 202_).]
+
+
+
+
+    JUST--WILLIAM
+
+
+    BY
+    RICHMAL CROMPTON
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    ILLUSTRATED BY
+    THOMAS HENRY
+
+
+    LONDON
+    GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED
+    SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRAND, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+    _First Edition_             _May, 1922._
+    _Second Impression_     _October, 1922._
+    _Third Impression_      _January, 1923._
+    _Fourth Impression_    _February, 1923._
+    _Fifth Impression_          _May, 1923._
+    _Sixth Impression_    _September, 1923._
+    _Seventh Impression_   _December, 1923._
+    _Eighth Impression_    _February, 1924._
+    _Ninth Impression_          _May, 1924._
+
+
+    _Made and Printed in Great Britain._
+    _Wyman & Sons, Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                           PAGE
+
+         I. WILLIAM GOES TO THE PICTURES                13
+
+        II. WILLIAM THE INTRUDER                        33
+
+       III. WILLIAM BELOW STAIRS                        57
+
+        IV. THE FALL OF THE IDOL                        75
+
+         V. THE SHOW                                    94
+
+        VI. A QUESTION OF GRAMMAR                      117
+
+       VII. WILLIAM JOINS THE BAND OF HOPE             132
+
+      VIII. THE OUTLAWS                                150
+
+        IX. WILLIAM AND WHITE SATIN                    168
+
+         X. WILLIAM'S NEW YEAR'S DAY                   186
+
+        XI. THE BEST LAID PLANS                        205
+
+       XII. "JUMBLE"                                   228
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WILLIAM GOES TO THE PICTURES
+
+
+It all began with William's aunt, who was in a good temper that morning,
+and gave him a shilling for posting a letter for her and carrying her
+parcels from the grocer's.
+
+"Buy some sweets or go to the Pictures," she said carelessly, as she
+gave it to him.
+
+William walked slowly down the road, gazing thoughtfully at the coin.
+After deep calculations, based on the fact that a shilling is the
+equivalent of two sixpences, he came to the conclusion that both
+luxuries could be indulged in.
+
+In the matter of sweets, William frankly upheld the superiority of
+quantity over quality. Moreover, he knew every sweet shop within a two
+miles radius of his home whose proprietor added an extra sweet after the
+scale had descended, and he patronised these shops exclusively. With
+solemn face and eager eye, he always watched the process of weighing,
+and "stingy" shops were known and banned by him.
+
+He wandered now to his favourite confectioner and stood outside the
+window for five minutes, torn between the rival attractions of
+Gooseberry Eyes and Marble Balls. Both were sold at 4 ounces for 2d.
+William never purchased more expensive luxuries. At last his frowning
+brow relaxed and he entered the shop.
+
+"Sixpennoth of Gooseberry Eyes," he said, with a slightly self-conscious
+air. The extent of his purchases rarely exceeded a penny.
+
+"Hello!" said the shopkeeper, in amused surprise.
+
+"Gotter bit of money this mornin'," explained William carelessly, with
+the air of a Rothschild.
+
+He watched the weighing of the emerald green dainties with silent
+intensity, saw with satisfaction the extra one added after the scale had
+fallen, received the precious paper bag, and, putting two sweets into
+his mouth, walked out of the shop.
+
+Sucking slowly, he walked down the road towards the Picture Palace.
+William was not in the habit of frequenting Picture Palaces. He had only
+been there once before in his life.
+
+It was a thrilling programme. First came the story of desperate crooks
+who, on coming out of any building, glanced cautiously up and down the
+street in huddled, crouching attitudes, then crept ostentatiously on
+their way in a manner guaranteed to attract attention and suspicion at
+any place and time. The plot was involved. They were pursued by police,
+they leapt on to a moving train and then, for no accountable reason,
+leapt from that on to a moving motor-car and from that they plunged into
+a moving river. It was thrilling and William thrilled. Sitting quite
+motionless, he watched, with wide, fascinated eyes, though his jaws
+never ceased their rotatory movement and every now and then his hand
+would go mechanically to the paper bag on his knees and convey a
+Gooseberry Eye to his mouth.
+
+The next play was a simple country love-story, in which figured a simple
+country maiden wooed by the squire, who was marked out as the villain by
+his moustachios.
+
+After many adventures the simple country maiden was won by a simple
+country son of the soil in picturesque rustic attire, whose emotions
+were faithfully portrayed by gestures that must have required much
+gymnastic skill; the villain was finally shown languishing in a prison
+cell, still indulging in frequent eye-brow play.
+
+Next came another love-story--this time of a noble-hearted couple,
+consumed with mutual passion and kept apart not only by a series of
+misunderstandings possible only in a picture play, but also by maidenly
+pride and reserve on the part of the heroine and manly pride and reserve
+on the part of the hero that forced them to hide their ardour beneath a
+cold and haughty exterior. The heroine's brother moved through the story
+like a good fairy, tender and protective towards his orphan sister and
+ultimately explained to each the burning passion of the other.
+
+It was moving and touching and William was moved and touched.
+
+The next was a comedy. It began by a solitary workman engaged upon the
+re-painting of a door and ended with a miscellaneous crowd of people,
+all covered with paint, falling downstairs on top of one another. It was
+amusing. William was riotously and loudly amused.
+
+Lastly came the pathetic story of a drunkard's downward path. He began
+as a wild young man in evening clothes drinking intoxicants and playing
+cards, he ended as a wild old man in rags still drinking intoxicants and
+playing cards. He had a small child with a pious and superior
+expression, who spent her time weeping over him and exhorting him to a
+better life, till, in a moment of justifiable exasperation, he threw a
+beer bottle at her head. He then bedewed her bed in Hospital with
+penitent tears, tore out his hair, flung up his arms towards Heaven,
+beat his waistcoat, and clasped her to his breast, so that it was not to
+be wondered at that, after all that excitement, the child had a relapse
+and with the words "Good-bye, Father. Do not think of what you have
+done. I forgive you," passed peacefully away.
+
+William drew a deep breath at the end, and still sucking, arose with the
+throng and passed out.
+
+Once outside, he glanced cautiously around and slunk down the road in
+the direction of his home. Then he doubled suddenly and ran down a back
+street to put his imaginary pursuers off his track. He took a pencil
+from his pocket and, levelling it at the empty air, fired twice. Two of
+his pursuers fell dead, the rest came on with redoubled vigour. There
+was no time to be lost. Running for dear life, he dashed down the next
+street, leaving in his wake an elderly gentleman nursing his toe and
+cursing volubly. As he neared his gate, William again drew the pencil
+from his pocket and, still looking back down the road, and firing as he
+went, he rushed into his own gateway.
+
+[Illustration: LOOKING BACK DOWN THE ROAD AND FIRING HIS PENCIL WILDLY,
+WILLIAM DASHED INTO HIS OWN GATE.]
+
+William's father, who had stayed at home that day because of a bad
+headache and a touch of liver, picked himself up from the middle of a
+rhododendron bush and seized William by the back of his neck.
+
+"You young ruffian," he roared, "what do you mean by charging into me
+like that?"
+
+William gently disengaged himself.
+
+"I wasn't chargin', Father," he said, meekly. "I was only jus' comin' in
+at the gate, same as other folks. I jus' wasn't looking jus' the way you
+were coming, but I can't look all ways at once, cause----"
+
+"Be _quiet_!" roared William's father.
+
+Like the rest of the family, he dreaded William's eloquence.
+
+"What's that on your tongue! Put your tongue out."
+
+William obeyed. The colour of William's tongue would have put to shame
+Spring's freshest tints.
+
+"How many times am I to tell you," bellowed William's father, "that I
+won't have you going about eating filthy poisons all day between meals?"
+
+"It's not filthy poison," said William. "It's jus' a few sweets Aunt
+Susan gave me 'cause I kin'ly went to the post office for her an'----"
+
+"Be _quiet_! Have you got any more of the foul things?"
+
+"They're not foul things," said William, doggedly. "They're good. Jus'
+have one, an' try. They're jus' a few sweets Aunt Susan kin'ly gave me
+an'----"
+
+"Be _quiet_! Where are they?"
+
+Slowly and reluctantly William drew forth his bag. His father seized it
+and flung it far into the bushes. For the next ten minutes William
+conducted a thorough and systematic search among the bushes and for the
+rest of the day consumed Gooseberry Eyes and garden soil in fairly equal
+proportions.
+
+He wandered round to the back garden and climbed on to the wall.
+
+"Hello!" said the little girl next door, looking up.
+
+Something about the little girl's head and curls reminded William of the
+simple country maiden. There was a touch of the artistic temperament
+about William. He promptly felt himself the simple country son of the
+soil.
+
+"Hullo, Joan," he said in a deep, husky voice intended to be expressive
+of intense affection. "Have you missed me while I've been away?"
+
+"Didn't know you'd been away," said Joan. "What are you talking so funny
+for?"
+
+"I'm not talkin' funny," said William in the same husky voice, "I can't
+help talkin' like this."
+
+"You've got a cold. That's what you've got. That's what Mother said when
+she saw you splashing about with your rain tub this morning. She said,
+'The next thing that we shall hear of William Brown will be he's in bed
+with a cold.'"
+
+"It's not a cold," said William mysteriously. "It's jus' the way I
+feel."
+
+"What are you eating?"
+
+"Gooseberry Eyes. Like one?" He took the packet from his pocket and
+handed it down to her. "Go on. Take two--three," he said in reckless
+generosity.
+
+"But they're--dirty."
+
+"Go on. It's only ord'nery dirt. It soon sucks off. They're jolly good."
+He poured a shower of them lavishly down to her.
+
+"I say," he said, reverting to his character of simple country lover.
+"Did you say you'd missed me? I bet you didn't think of me as much as I
+did of you. I jus' bet you didn't." His voice had sunk deeper and deeper
+till it almost died away.
+
+"I say, William, does your throat hurt you awful, that you've got to
+talk like that?"
+
+Her blue eyes were anxious and sympathetic.
+
+William put one hand to his throat and frowned.
+
+"A bit," he confessed lightly.
+
+"Oh, William!" she clasped her hands. "Does it hurt all the time?"
+
+Her solicitude was flattering.
+
+"I don't talk much about it, anyway, do I?" he said manfully.
+
+She started up and stared at him with big blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, William! Is it--is it your--lungs? I've got an aunt that's got
+lungs and she coughs and coughs," William coughed hastily, "and it hurts
+her and makes her awful bad. Oh, William, I do _hope_ you've not got
+lungs."
+
+Her tender, anxious little face was upturned to him. "I guess I have got
+lungs," he said, "but I don't make a fuss about 'em."
+
+He coughed again.
+
+"What does the doctor say about it?"
+
+William considered a minute.
+
+"He says it's lungs all right," he said at last. "He says I gotter be
+jolly careful."
+
+"William, would you like my new paintbox?"
+
+"I don't think so. Not now. Thanks."
+
+"I've got three balls and one's quite new. Wouldn't you like it,
+William?"
+
+"No--thanks. You see, it's no use my collectin' a lot of things. You
+never know--with lungs."
+
+"Oh, _William_!"
+
+Her distress was pathetic.
+
+"Of course," he said hastily, "if I'm careful it'll be all right. Don't
+you worry about me."
+
+"Joan!" from the house.
+
+"That's Mother. Good-bye, William dear. If Father brings me home any
+chocolate, I'll bring it in to you. I will--honest. Thanks for the
+Gooseberry Eyes. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye--and don't worry about me," he added bravely.
+
+He put another Gooseberry Eye into his mouth and wandered round
+aimlessly to the front of the house. His grown-up sister, Ethel, was at
+the front door, shaking hands with a young man.
+
+"I'll do all I can for you," she was saying earnestly.
+
+Their hands were clasped.
+
+"I know you will," he said equally earnestly.
+
+Both look and handclasp were long. The young man walked away. Ethel
+stood at the door, gazing after him, with a far-away look in her eyes.
+William was interested.
+
+"That was Jack Morgan, wasn't it?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Ethel absently and went into the house.
+
+The look, the long handclasp, the words lingered in William's memory.
+They must be jolly fond of each other, like people are when they're
+engaged, but he knew they weren't engaged. P'raps they were too proud to
+let each other know how fond they were of each other--like the man and
+girl at the pictures. Ethel wanted a brother like the one in the
+pictures to let the man know she was fond of him. Then a light came
+suddenly into William's mind and he stood, deep in thought.
+
+Inside the drawing-room, Ethel was talking to her mother.
+
+"He's going to propose to her next Sunday. He told me about it because
+I'm her best friend, and he wanted to ask me if I thought he'd any
+chance. I said I thought he had, and I said I'd try and prepare her a
+little and put in a good word for him if I could. Isn't it thrilling?"
+
+"Yes, dear. By the way, did you see William anywhere? I do hope he's not
+in mischief."
+
+"He was in the front garden a minute ago." She went to the window. "He's
+not there now, though."
+
+William had just arrived at Mr. Morgan's house.
+
+The maid showed him into Mr. Morgan's sitting-room.
+
+"Mr. Brown," she announced.
+
+The young man rose to receive his guest with politeness not unmixed with
+bewilderment. His acquaintance with William was of the slightest.
+
+"Good afternoon," said William. "I've come from Ethel."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes." William fumbled in his pocket and at last drew forth a rosebud,
+slightly crushed by its close confinement in the company of the
+Gooseberry Eyes, a penknife, a top and a piece of putty.
+
+"She sent you this," said William gravely.
+
+Mr. Morgan gazed at it with the air of one who is sleep-walking.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SENT YOU THIS!" WILLIAM SAID GRAVELY.]
+
+"Yes? Er--very kind of her."
+
+"Kinder keep-sake. Souveneer," explained William.
+
+"Yes. Er--any message?"
+
+"Oh, yes. She wants you to come in and see her this evening."
+
+"Er--yes. Of course. I've just come from her. Perhaps she remembered
+something she wanted to tell me after I'd gone."
+
+"P'raps."
+
+Then, "Any particular time?"
+
+"No. 'Bout seven, I expect."
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+Mr. Morgan's eyes were fixed with a fascinated wondering gaze upon the
+limp, and by no means spotless, rose-bud.
+
+"You say she--sent this?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And no other message?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Er--well, say I'll come with pleasure, will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Silence.
+
+Then, "She thinks an awful lot of you, Ethel does."
+
+Mr. Morgan passed a hand over his brow.
+
+"Yes? Kind--er--very kind, I'm sure."
+
+"Always talkin' about you in her sleep," went on William, warming to his
+theme. "I sleep in the next room and I can hear her talkin' about you
+all night. Jus' sayin' your name over and over again. 'Jack Morgan, Jack
+Morgan, Jack Morgan.'" William's voice was husky and soulful. "Jus'
+like that--over an' over again. 'Jack Morgan, Jack Morgan, Jack
+Morgan.'"
+
+Mr. Morgan was speechless. He sat gazing with horror-stricken face at
+his young visitor.
+
+"Are you--_sure_?" he said at last. "It might be someone else's name."
+
+"No, 'tisn't," said William firmly. "It's yours. 'Jack Morgan, Jack
+Morgan, Jack Morgan'--jus' like that. An' she eats just nothin' now.
+Always hangin' round the windows to watch you pass."
+
+The perspiration stood out in beads on Mr. Morgan's brow.
+
+"It's--_horrible_," he said at last in a hoarse whisper.
+
+William was gratified. The young man had at last realised his cruelty.
+But William never liked to leave a task half done. He still sat on and
+calmly and silently considered his next statement. Mechanically he put a
+hand into his pocket and conveyed a Gooseberry Eye to his mouth. Mr.
+Morgan also sat in silence with a stricken look upon his face, gazing
+into vacancy.
+
+"She's got your photo," said William at last, "fixed up into one of
+those little round things on a chain round her neck."
+
+"Are--you--_sure_?" said Mr. Morgan desperately.
+
+"Sure's fate," said William rising. "Well, I'd better be goin'. She
+pertic-ler wants to see you alone to-night. Good-bye."
+
+But Mr. Morgan did not answer. He sat huddled up in his chair staring in
+front of him long after William had gone jauntily on his way. Then he
+moistened his dry lips.
+
+"Good Lord," he groaned.
+
+William was thinking of the pictures as he went home. That painter one
+was jolly good. When they all got all over paint! And when they all fell
+downstairs! William suddenly guffawed out loud at the memory. But what
+had the painter chap been doing at the very beginning before he began to
+paint? He'd been getting off the old paint with a sort of torch thing
+and a knife, then he began putting the new paint on. Just sort of
+melting the old paint and then scraping it off. William had never seen
+it done in real life, but he supposed that was the way you did get old
+paint off. Melting it with some sort of fire, then scraping it off. He
+wasn't sure whether it was that, but he could find out. As he entered
+the house he took his penknife from his pocket, opened it thoughtfully,
+and went upstairs.
+
+Mr. Brown came home about dinner-time.
+
+"How's your head, father?" said Ethel sympathetically.
+
+"Rotten!" said Mr. Brown, sinking wearily into an arm-chair.
+
+"Perhaps dinner will do it good," said Mrs. Brown, "it ought to be ready
+now."
+
+The housemaid entered the room.
+
+"Mr. Morgan, mum. He wants to see Miss Ethel. I've shown him into the
+library."
+
+"_Now?_" exploded Mr. Brown. "What the deu--why the dickens is the young
+idiot coming at this time of day? Seven o'clock! What time does he think
+we have dinner? What does he mean by coming round paying calls on people
+at dinner time? What----"
+
+"Ethel, dear," interrupted Mrs. Brown, "do go and see what he wants and
+get rid of him as soon as you can."
+
+Ethel entered the library, carefully closing the door behind her to keep
+out the sound of her father's comments, which were plainly audible
+across the hall.
+
+She noticed something wan and haggard-looking on Mr. Morgan's face as he
+rose to greet her.
+
+"Er--good evening, Miss Brown."
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Morgan."
+
+Then they sat in silence, both awaiting some explanation of the visit.
+The silence became oppressive. Mr. Morgan, with an air of acute misery
+and embarrassment, shifted his feet and coughed. Ethel looked at the
+clock. Then--
+
+"Was it raining when you came, Mr. Morgan?"
+
+"Raining? Er--no. No--not at all."
+
+Silence.
+
+"I thought it looked like rain this afternoon."
+
+"Yes, of course. Er--no, not at all."
+
+Silence.
+
+"It does make the roads so bad round here when it rains."
+
+"Yes." Mr. Morgan put up a hand as though to loosen his collar.
+"Er--very bad."
+
+"Almost impassable."
+
+"Er--quite."
+
+Silence again.
+
+Inside the drawing-room, Mr. Brown was growing restive.
+
+"Is dinner to be kept waiting for that youth all night? Quarter past
+seven! You know it's just what I can't stand--having my meals interfered
+with. Is my digestion to be ruined simply because this young nincompoop
+chooses to pay his social calls at seven o'clock at night?"
+
+"Then we must ask him to dinner," said Mrs. Brown, desperately. "We
+really must."
+
+"We must _not_," said Mr. Brown. "Can't I stay away from the office for
+one day with a headache, without having to entertain all the young
+jackasses for miles around." The telephone bell rang. He raised his
+hands above his head.
+
+"Oh----"
+
+"I'll go, dear," said Mrs. Brown hastily.
+
+She returned with a worried frown on her brow.
+
+"It's Mrs. Clive," she said. "She says Joan has been very sick because
+of some horrible sweets William gave her, and she said she was so sorry
+to hear about William and hoped he'd be better soon. I couldn't quite
+make it out, but it seems that William has been telling them that he had
+to go and see a doctor about his lungs and the doctor said they were
+very weak and he'd have to be careful."
+
+Mr. Brown sat up and looked at her. "But--why--on--earth?" he said
+slowly.
+
+"I don't know, dear," said Mrs. Brown, helplessly. "I don't know
+anything about it."
+
+"He's mad," said Mr. Brown with conviction. "Mad. It's the only
+explanation."
+
+Then came the opening and shutting of the front door and Ethel entered.
+She was very flushed.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM WAS HAPPILY AND QUIETLY ENGAGED IN BURNING THE
+PAINT OFF HIS BEDROOM DOOR.]
+
+"He's gone," she said. "Mother, it's simply horrible! He didn't tell me
+much, but it seems that William actually went to his house and told him
+that I wanted to see him alone at seven o'clock this evening. I've
+hardly spoken to William to-day. He couldn't have misunderstood anything
+I said. And he actually took a flower with him--a dreadful-looking
+rosebud--and said I'd sent it. I simply didn't know where to look or
+what to say. It was horrible!"
+
+Mrs. Brown sat gazing weakly at her daughter.
+
+Mr. Brown rose with the air of a man goaded beyond endurance.
+
+"Where _is_ William?" he said shortly.
+
+"I don't know, but I thought I heard him go upstairs some time ago."
+
+William _was_ upstairs. For the last twenty minutes he had been happily
+and quietly engaged upon his bedroom door with a lighted taper in one
+hand and penknife in the other. There was no doubt about it. By
+successful experiment he had proved that that was the way you got old
+paint off. When Mr. Brown came upstairs he had entirely stripped one
+panel of its paint.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later William sat in the back garden on an upturned box sucking,
+with a certain dogged defiance, the last and dirtiest of the Gooseberry
+Eyes. Sadly he reviewed the day. It had not been a success. His
+generosity to the little girl next door had been misconstrued into an
+attempt upon her life, his efforts to help on his only sister's love
+affair had been painfully misunderstood, lastly because (among other
+things) he had discovered a perfectly scientific method of removing old
+paint, he had been brutally assaulted by a violent and unreasonable
+parent. Suddenly William began to wonder if his father drank. He saw
+himself, through a mist of pathos, as a Drunkard's child. He tried to
+imagine his father weeping over him in Hospital and begging his
+forgiveness. It was a wonder he wasn't there now, anyway. His shoulders
+drooped--his whole attitude became expressive of extreme dejection.
+
+Inside the house, his father, reclining at length in an armchair,
+discoursed to his wife on the subject of his son. One hand was pressed
+to his aching brow, and the other gesticulating freely. "He's insane,"
+he said, "stark, raving insane. You ought to take him to a doctor and
+get his brain examined. Look at him to-day. He begins by knocking me
+into the middle of the rhododendron bushes--under no provocation, mind
+you. I hadn't spoken to him. Then he tries to poison that nice little
+thing next door with some vile stuff I thought I'd thrown away. Then he
+goes about telling people he's consumptive. He looks it, doesn't he?
+Then he takes extraordinary messages and love tokens from Ethel to
+strange young men and brings them here just when we're going to begin
+dinner, and then goes round burning and hacking at the doors. Where's
+the sense in it--in any of it? They're the acts of a lunatic--you ought
+to have his brain examined."
+
+Mrs. Brown cut off her darning wool and laid aside the sock she had just
+finished darning.
+
+"It certainly sounds very silly, dear," she said mildly. "But there
+might be some explanation of it all, if only we knew. Boys are such
+funny things."
+
+She looked at the clock and went over to the window, "William!" she
+called. "It's your bed-time, dear."
+
+William rose sadly and came slowly into the house.
+
+"Good night, Mother," he said; then he turned a mournful and reproachful
+eye upon his father.
+
+"Good night, Father," he said. "Don't think about what you've done, I
+for----"
+
+He stopped and decided, hastily but wisely, to retire with all possible
+speed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WILLIAM THE INTRUDER
+
+
+"She's different from everybody else in the world," stammered Robert
+ecstatically. "You simply couldn't describe her. No one could!"
+
+His mother continued to darn his socks and made no comment.
+
+Only William, his young brother, showed interest.
+
+"_How's_ she different from anyone else?" he demanded. "Is she blind or
+lame or sumthin'?"
+
+Robert turned on him with exasperation.
+
+"Oh, go and play at trains!" he said. "A child like you can't understand
+anything."
+
+William retired with dignity to the window and listened, with interest
+unabated, to the rest of the conversation.
+
+"Yes, but who is she, dear?" said their mother. "Robert, I can't _think_
+how you get these big holes in your heels!"
+
+Robert ran his hands wildly through his hair.
+
+"I've _told_ you who she is, Mother," he said. "I've been talking about
+her ever since I came into the room."
+
+"Yes, I know, dear, but you haven't mentioned her name or anything about
+her."
+
+"Well," Robert spoke with an air of super-human patience, "she's a Miss
+Cannon and she's staying with the Clives and I met her out with Mrs.
+Clive this morning and she introduced me and she's the most beautiful
+girl I've ever seen and she----"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Brown hastily, "you told me all that."
+
+"Well," went on the infatuated Robert, "we must have her to tea. I know
+I can't marry yet--not while I'm still at college--but I could get to
+know her. Not that I suppose she'd look at me. She's miles above
+me--miles above anyone. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
+You can't imagine her. You wouldn't believe me if I described her. No
+one could describe her. She----"
+
+Mrs. Brown interrupted him with haste.
+
+"I'll ask Mrs. Clive to bring her over one afternoon. I've no more of
+this blue wool, Robert. I wish you didn't have your socks such different
+colours. I shall have to use mauve. It's right on the heel; it won't
+show."
+
+Robert gave a gasp of horror.
+
+"You _can't_, Mother. How do you know it won't show? And even if it
+didn't show, the thought of it--! It's--it's a crisis of my life now
+I've met her. I can't go about feeling ridiculous."
+
+"I say," said William open-mouthed. "Are you spoony on her?"
+
+"William, don't use such vulgar expressions," said Mrs. Brown. "Robert
+just feels a friendly interest in her, don't you, Robert?"
+
+"'A friendly interest'!" groaned Robert in despair. "No one ever _tries_
+to understand what I feel. After all I've told you about her and that
+she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and miles above me and
+above anyone and you think I feel a 'friendly interest' in her.
+It's--it's the one great passion of my life! It's----"
+
+"Well," put in Mrs. Brown mildly, "I'll ring up Mrs. Clive and ask if
+she's doing anything to-morrow afternoon."
+
+Robert's tragic young face lit up, then he stood wrapt in thought, and a
+cloud of anxiety overcast it.
+
+"Ellen can press the trousers of my brown suit to-night, can't she? And,
+Mother, could you get me some socks and a tie before to-morrow? Blue, I
+think--a bright blue, you know, not too bright, but not so as you don't
+notice them. I wish the laundry was a decent one. You know, a man's
+collar ought to _shine_ when it's new on. They never put a shine on to
+them. I'd better have some new ones for to-morrow. It's so important,
+how one looks. She--people _judge_ you on how you look. They----"
+
+Mrs. Brown laid her work aside.
+
+"I'll go and ring up Mrs. Clive now," she said.
+
+When she returned, William had gone and Robert was standing by the
+window, his face pale with suspense, and a Napoleonic frown on his brow.
+
+"Mrs. Clive can't come," announced Mrs. Brown in her comfortable voice,
+"but Miss Cannon will come alone. It appears she's met Ethel before. So
+you needn't worry any more, dear."
+
+Robert gave a sardonic laugh.
+
+"_Worry!_" he said, "There's plenty to worry about still. What about
+William?"
+
+"Well, what about him?"
+
+"Well, can't he go away somewhere to-morrow? Things never go right when
+William's there. You know they don't."
+
+"The poor boy must have tea with us, dear. He'll be very good, I'm sure.
+Ethel will be home then and she'll help. I'll tell William not to worry
+you. I'm sure he'll be good."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+William had received specific instructions. He was not to come into the
+house till the tea-bell rang, and he was to go out and play in the
+garden again directly after tea. He was perfectly willing to obey them.
+He was thrilled by the thought of Robert in the role of the love-lorn
+hero. He took the situation quite seriously.
+
+He was in the garden when the visitor came up the drive. He had been
+told not to obtrude himself upon her notice, so he crept up silently and
+peered at her through the rhododendron bushes. The proceeding also
+happened to suit his character of the moment, which was that of a Red
+Indian chief.
+
+Miss Cannon was certainly pretty. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and
+dimples that came and went in her rosy cheeks. She was dressed in white
+and carried a parasol. She walked up the drive, looking neither to right
+nor left, till a slight movement in the bushes arrested her attention.
+She turned quickly and saw a small boy's face, smeared black with burnt
+cork and framed in hens' feathers tied on with tape. The dimples peeped
+out.
+
+"Hail, O great chief!" she said.
+
+William gazed at her open-mouthed. Such intelligence on the part of a
+grown-up was unusual.
+
+[Illustration: "HAIL, O GREAT CHIEF!" SHE SAID.]
+
+"Chief Red Hand," he supplied with a fierce scowl.
+
+She bowed low, brown eyes alight with merriment.
+
+"And what death awaits the poor white face who has fallen defenceless
+into his hand?"
+
+"You better come quiet to my wigwam an' see," said Red Hand darkly.
+
+She threw a glance to the bend in the drive behind which lay the house
+and with a low laugh followed him through the bushes. From one point the
+drawing-room window could be seen, and there the anxious Robert stood,
+pale with anxiety, stiff and upright in his newly-creased trousers (well
+turned up to show the new blue socks), his soulful eyes fixed
+steadfastly on the bend in the drive round which the beloved should
+come. Every now and then his nervous hand wandered up to touch the new
+tie and gleaming new collar, which was rather too high and too tight for
+comfort, but which the shopkeeper had informed his harassed customer was
+the "latest and most correct shape."
+
+Meanwhile the beloved had reached William's "dug-out." William had made
+this himself of branches cut down from the trees and spent many happy
+hours in it with one or other of his friends.
+
+"Here is the wigwam, Pale-face," he said in a sepulchral voice. "Stand
+here while I decide with Snake Face and the other chiefs what's goin' to
+be done to you. There's Snake Face an' the others," he added in his
+natural voice, pointing to a small cluster of shrubs.
+
+Approaching these, he stood and talked fiercely and unintelligibly for
+a few minutes, turning his scowling corked face and pointing his finger
+at her every now and then, as, apparently, he described his capture.
+
+Then he approached her again.
+
+"That was Red Indian what I was talkin' then," he explained in his
+ordinary voice, then sinking it to its low, roaring note and scowling
+more ferociously than ever, "Snake Face says the Pale-face must be
+scalped and cooked and eat!"
+
+He took out a penknife and opened it as though to perform the operation,
+then continued, "But me and the others say that if you'll be a squaw an'
+cook for us we'll let you go alive."
+
+Miss Cannon dropped on to her knees.
+
+"Most humble and grateful thanks, great Red Hand," she said. "I will
+with pleasure be your squaw."
+
+"I've gotter fire round here," said William proudly, leading her to the
+back of the wigwam, where a small wood fire smouldered spiritlessly,
+choked by a large tin full of a dark liquid.
+
+"That, O Squaw," said Red Hand with a dramatic gesture, "is a Pale-face
+we caught las' night!"
+
+The squaw clasped her hands together.
+
+"Oh, how _lovely_!" she said. "Is he cooking?"
+
+Red Hand nodded. Then,
+
+"I'll get you some feathers," he said obligingly. "You oughter have
+feathers, too."
+
+He retired into the depth of the wigwam and returned with a handful of
+hen feathers. Miss Cannon took off her big shady hat and stuck the
+feathers into her fluffy brown hair with a laugh.
+
+"This is jolly!" she said. "I love Red Indians!"
+
+"I've got some cork you can have to do your face, too," went on William
+with reckless generosity. "It soon burns in the fire."
+
+She threw a glance towards the chimneys of the house that could be seen
+through the trees and shook her pretty head regretfully.
+
+"I'm afraid I'd better not," she said sadly.
+
+"Well," he said, "now I'll go huntin' and you stir the Pale-face and
+we'll eat him when I come back. Now, I'll be off. You watch me track."
+
+He opened his clasp-knife with a bloodthirsty flourish and, casting
+sinister glances round him, crept upon his hands and knees into the
+bushes. He circled about, well within his squaw's vision, obviously bent
+upon impressing her. She stirred the mixture in the tin with a twig and
+threw him every now and then the admiring glances he so evidently
+desired.
+
+Soon he returned, carrying over his shoulder a door-mat which he threw
+down at her feet.
+
+"A venison, O squaw," he said in a lordly voice. "Let it be cooked. I've
+had it out all morning," he added in his ordinary tones; "they've not
+missed it yet."
+
+He fetched from the "wigwam" two small jagged tins and, taking the
+larger tin off the fire, poured some into each.
+
+"Now," he said, "here's some Pale-face for you, squaw."
+
+"Oh," she said, "I'm sure he's awfully good, but----"
+
+"You needn't be frightened of it," said William protectively. "It's
+jolly good, I can tell you." He picked up the paper cover of a packet of
+soup from behind the trees. "It's jus' that and water and it's jolly
+good!"
+
+"How lovely! Do they let you----?"
+
+"They don't let me," he broke in hastily, "but there's heaps in the
+larder and they don't notice one every now an' then. Go on!"
+encouragingly, "I don't mind you having it! Honest, I don't! I'll get
+some more soon."
+
+Bravely she raised the tin to her lips and took a sip.
+
+"Gorgeous!" she said, shutting her eyes. Then she drained the tin.
+
+William's face shone with pride and happiness. But it clouded over as
+the sound of a bell rang out from the house.
+
+"Crumbs! That's tea!"
+
+Hastily Miss Cannon took the feathers from her hair and put on her hat.
+
+"You don't keep a looking-glass in your wigwam I suppose?" she said.
+
+"N-no," admitted William. "But I'll get one for next time you come. I'll
+get one from Ethel's room."
+
+"Won't she mind?"
+
+"She won't know," said William simply.
+
+Miss Cannon smoothed down her dress.
+
+"I'm horribly late. What will they think of me? It was awful of me to
+come with you. I'm always doing awful things. That's a secret between
+you and me." She gave William a smile that dazzled him. "Now come in and
+we'll confess."
+
+"I can't," said William. "I've got to wash an' come down tidy. I
+promised I would. It's a special day. Because of Robert, you know. Well
+_you_ know. Because of--Robert!"
+
+He looked up at her mystified face with a significant nod.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robert was frantic. He had run his hands through his hair so often that
+it stood around his head like a spiked halo.
+
+"We _can't_ begin without her," he said. "She'll think we're awful. It
+will--put her off me for ever. She's not used to being treated like
+that. She's the sort of girl people don't begin without. She's the most
+beautiful girl I've ever met in all my life and you--my own
+mother--treat her like this. You may be ruining my life. You've no idea
+what this means to me. If you'd seen her you'd feel more sympathy. I
+simply can't describe her--I----"
+
+"I said four o'clock, Robert," said Mrs. Brown firmly, "and it's after
+half-past. Ethel, tell Emma she can ring the bell and bring in tea."
+
+The perspiration stood out on Robert's brow.
+
+"It's--the downfall of all my hopes," he said hoarsely.
+
+Then, a few minutes after the echoes of the tea-bell died away, the
+front door bell rang sharply. Robert stroked his hair down with wild,
+unrestrained movements of his hands, and summoned a tortured smile to
+his lips.
+
+Miss Cannon appeared upon the threshold, bewitching and demure.
+
+"Aren't I perfectly disgraceful?" she said with her low laugh. "To tell
+the truth, I met your little boy in the drive and I've been with him
+some time. He's a perfect little dear, isn't he?"
+
+Her brown eyes rested on Robert. Robert moistened his lips and smiled
+the tortured smile, but was beyond speech.
+
+"Yes, I know Ethel and I met your son--_yesterday_, wasn't it?"
+
+Robert murmured unintelligibly, raising one hand to the too tight
+collar, and then bowed vaguely in her direction.
+
+Then they went in to tea.
+
+William, his hair well brushed, the cork partially washed from his face,
+and the feathers removed, arrived a few minutes later. Conversation was
+carried on chiefly by Miss Cannon and Ethel. Robert racked his brain for
+some striking remark, something that would raise him in her esteem far
+above the ranks of the ordinary young man, but nothing came. Whenever
+her brown eyes rested on him, however, he summoned the mirthless smile
+to his lips and raised a hand to relieve the strain of the imprisoning
+collar. Desperately he felt the precious moments passing and his passion
+yet unrevealed, except by his eyes, whose message he was afraid she had
+not read.
+
+As they rose from tea, William turned to his mother, with an anxious
+sibilant whisper,
+
+"Ought _I_ to have put on my best suit _too_?"
+
+The demure lights danced in Miss Cannon's eyes and the look the
+perspiring Robert sent him would have crushed a less bold spirit.
+
+William had quite forgotten the orders he had received to retire from
+the scene directly after tea. He was impervious to all hints. He
+followed in the train of the all-conquering Miss Cannon to the
+drawing-room and sat on the sofa with Robert who had taken his seat next
+his beloved.
+
+"Are you--er--fond of reading, Miss Cannon?" began Robert with a painful
+effort.
+
+"I--_wrote_ a tale once," said William boastfully, leaning over Robert
+before she could answer. "It was a jolly good one. I showed it to some
+people. I'll show it to you if you like. It began with a pirate on a
+raft an' he'd stole some jewel'ry and the king the jewels belonged to
+was coming after him on a steamer and jus' when he was comin' up to him
+he jumped into the water and took the jewls with him an' a fish eat the
+jewls and the king caught it an'," he paused for breath.
+
+"I'd love to read it!" said Miss Cannon.
+
+Robert turned sideways, and resting an arm on his knee to exclude the
+persistent William, spoke in a husky voice.
+
+"What is your favourite flower, Miss Cannon?"
+
+William's small head was craned round Robert's arm.
+
+"I've gotter garden. I've got Virginia Stock grow'n all over it. It
+grows up in no time. An' must'erd 'n cress grows in no time, too. I like
+things what grow quick, don't you? You get tired of waiting for the
+other sorts, don't you?"
+
+Robert rose desperately.
+
+"Would you care to see the garden and green-houses, Miss Cannon?" he
+said.
+
+"I'd love to," said Miss Cannon.
+
+With a threatening glare at William, Robert led the way to the garden.
+And William, all innocent animation, followed.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM'S SMALL HEAD WAS CRANED ROUND ROBERT'S ARM. "I
+LIKE THINGS WHAT GROW QUICK, DON'T YOU?" HE SAID--ALL INNOCENT
+ANIMATION.]
+
+"Can you tie knots what can't come untied?" he demanded.
+
+"No," she said, "I wish I could."
+
+"I can. I'll show you. I'll get a piece of string and show you
+afterwards. It's easy but it wants practice, that's all. An' I'll teach
+you how to make aeroplanes out of paper what fly in the air when it's
+windy. That's quite easy. Only you've gotter be careful to get 'em the
+right size. I can make 'em and I can make lots of things out of match
+boxes an' things an'----"
+
+The infuriated Robert interrupted.
+
+"These are my father's roses. He's very proud of them."
+
+"They're beautiful."
+
+"Well, wait till you see my Virginia Stock! that's all. Wait----"
+
+"Will you have this tea-rose, Miss Cannon?" Robert's face was purple as
+he presented it. "It--it--er--it suits you. You--er--flowers and
+you--that is--I'm sure--you love flowers--you should--er--always have
+flowers. If I----"
+
+"An' I'll get you those red ones and that white one," broke in the
+equally infatuated William, determined not to be outshone. "An' I'll get
+you some of my Virginia Stock. An' I don't give my Virginia Stock to
+_anyone_," he added with emphasis.
+
+When they re-entered the drawing-room, Miss Cannon carried a large
+bouquet of Virginia Stock and white and red roses which completely hid
+Robert's tea-rose. William was by her side, chatting airily and
+confidently. Robert followed--a pale statue of despair.
+
+In answer to Robert's agonised glance, Mrs. Brown summoned William to
+her corner, while Robert and Miss Cannon took their seat again upon the
+sofa.
+
+"I hope--I hope," said Robert soulfully, "I hope your stay here is a
+long one?"
+
+"Well, why sha'n't I jus' _speak_ to her?" William's whisper was loud
+and indignant.
+
+"'Sh, dear!" said Mrs. Brown.
+
+"I should like to show you some of the walks around here," went on
+Robert desperately with a fearful glance towards the corner where
+William stood in righteous indignation before his mother. "If I could
+have that--er--pleasure--er--honour?"
+
+"I was only jus' _speaking_ to her," went on William's voice. "I wasn't
+doin' any harm, was I? Only _speaking_ to her!"
+
+The silence was intense. Robert, purple, opened his lips to say
+something, anything to drown that horrible voice, but nothing would
+come. Miss Cannon was obviously listening to William.
+
+"Is no one else ever to _speak_ to her." The sibilant whisper, raised in
+indignant appeal, filled all the room. "Jus' 'cause Robert's fell in
+love with her?"
+
+The horror of the moment haunted Robert's nights and days for weeks to
+come.
+
+Mrs. Brown coughed hastily and began to describe at unnecessary length
+the ravages of the caterpillars upon her husband's favourite rose-tree.
+
+William withdrew with dignity to the garden a minute later and Miss
+Cannon rose from the sofa.
+
+"I must be going, I'm afraid," she said with a smile.
+
+Robert, anguished and overpowered, rose slowly.
+
+"You must come again some time," he said weakly but with passion
+undaunted.
+
+"I will," she said. "I'm longing to see more of William. I adore
+William!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They comforted Robert's wounded feelings as best they could, but it was
+Ethel who devised the plan that finally cheered him. She suggested a
+picnic on the following Thursday, which happened to be Robert's birthday
+and incidentally the last day of Miss Cannon's visit, and the picnic
+party was to consist of--Robert, Ethel, Mrs. Clive and Miss Cannon, and
+William was not even to be told where it was to be. The invitation was
+sent that evening and Robert spent the week dreaming of picnic lunches
+and suggesting impossible dainties of which the cook had never heard. It
+was not until she threatened to give notice that he reluctantly agreed
+to leave the arrangements to her. He sent his white flannels (which were
+perfectly clean) to the laundry with a note attached, hinting darkly at
+legal proceedings if they were not sent back, spotless, by Thursday
+morning. He went about with an expression of set and solemn purpose upon
+his frowning countenance. William he utterly ignored. He bought a book
+of poems at a second-hand bookshop and kept them on the table by his
+bed.
+
+They saw nothing of Miss Cannon in the interval, but Thursday dawned
+bright and clear, and Robert's anxious spirits rose. He was presented
+with a watch and chain by his father and with a bicycle by his mother
+and a tin of toffee (given not without ulterior motive) by William.
+
+They met Mrs. Clive and Miss Cannon at the station and took tickets to a
+village a few miles away whence they had decided to walk to a shady spot
+on the river bank.
+
+William's dignity was slightly offended by his pointed exclusion from
+the party, but he had resigned himself to it, and spent the first part
+of the morning in the character of Chief Red Hand among the rhododendron
+bushes. He had added an ostrich feather found in Ethel's room to his
+head-dress, and used almost a whole cork on his face. He wore the
+door-mat pinned to his shoulders.
+
+After melting some treacle toffee in rain-water over his smoking fire,
+adding orange juice and drinking the resulting liquid, he tired of the
+game and wandered upstairs to Robert's bedroom to inspect his birthday
+presents. The tin of toffee was on the table by Robert's bed. William
+took one or two as a matter of course and began to read the love-poems.
+He was horrified a few minutes later to see the tin empty, but he
+fastened the lid with a sigh, wondering if Robert would guess who had
+eaten them. He was afraid he would. Anyway he'd given him them. And
+anyway, he hadn't known he was eating them.
+
+He then went to the dressing-table and tried on the watch and chain at
+various angles and with various postures. He finally resisted the
+temptation to wear them for the rest of the morning and replaced them on
+the dressing-table.
+
+Then he wandered downstairs and round to the shed, where Robert's new
+bicycle stood in all its glory. It was shining and spotless and William
+gazed at it in awe and admiration. He came to the conclusion that he
+could do it no possible harm by leading it carefully round the house.
+Encouraged by the fact that Mrs. Brown was out shopping, he walked it
+round the house several times. He much enjoyed the feeling of importance
+and possession that it gave him. He felt loth to part with it. He
+wondered if it was very hard to ride. He had tried to ride one once when
+he was staying with an aunt. He stood on a garden bench and with
+difficulty transferred himself from that to the bicycle seat. To his
+surprise and delight he rode for a few yards before he fell off. He
+tried again and fell off again. He tried again and rode straight into a
+holly bush. He forgot everything in his determination to master the art.
+He tried again and again. He fell off or rode into the holly bush again
+and again. The shining black paint of the bicycle was scratched, the
+handle bars were slightly bent and dulled; William himself was bruised
+and battered but unbeaten.
+
+At last he managed to avoid the fatal magnet of the holly bush, to steer
+an unsteady ziz-zag course down the drive and out into the road. He had
+had no particular intention of riding into the road. In fact he was
+still wearing his befeathered headgear, blacked face, and the mat pinned
+to his shoulders. It was only when he was actually in the road that he
+realised that retreat was impossible, that he had no idea how to get off
+the bicycle.
+
+What followed was to William more like a nightmare than anything else.
+He saw a motor-lorry coming towards him and in sudden panic turned down
+a side street and from that into another side street. People came out of
+their houses to watch him pass. Children booed or cheered him and ran
+after him in crowds. And William went on and on simply because he could
+not stop. His iron nerve had failed him. He had not even the presence of
+mind to fall off. He was quite lost. He had left the town behind him and
+did not know where he was going. But wherever he went he was the centre
+of attraction. The strange figure with blackened, streaked face, mat
+flying behind in the wind and a head-dress of feathers from which every
+now and then one floated away, brought the population to its doors. Some
+said he had escaped from an asylum, some that he was an advertisement of
+something. The children were inclined to think he was part of a circus.
+William himself had passed beyond despair. His face was white and set.
+His first panic had changed to a dull certainty that this would go on
+for ever. He would never know how to stop. He supposed he would go right
+across England. He wondered if he were near the sea now. He couldn't be
+far off. He wondered if he would ever see his mother and father again.
+And his feet pedalled mechanically along. They did not reach the pedals
+at their lowest point; they had to catch them as they came up and send
+them down with all their might.
+
+It was very tiring; William wondered if people would be sorry if he
+dropped down dead.
+
+I have said that William did not know where he was going.
+
+_But Fate knew._
+
+The picnickers walked down the hill from the little station to the river
+bank. It was a beautiful morning. Robert, his heart and hopes high,
+walked beside his goddess, revelling in his nearness to her though he
+could think of nothing to say to her. But Ethel and Mrs. Clive chattered
+gaily.
+
+"We've given William the slip," said Ethel with a laugh. "He's no idea
+where we've gone even!"
+
+"I'm sorry," said Miss Cannon, "I'd have loved William to be here."
+
+"You don't know him," said Ethel fervently.
+
+"What a beautiful morning it is!" murmured Robert, feeling that some
+remark was due from him. "Am I walking too fast for you--Miss Cannon?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"May I carry your parasol for you?" he enquired humbly.
+
+"Oh, no, thanks."
+
+He proposed a boat on the river after lunch, and it appeared that Miss
+Cannon would love it, but Ethel and Mrs. Clive would rather stay on the
+bank.
+
+His cup of bliss was full. It would be his opportunity of sealing
+lifelong friendship with her, of arranging a regular correspondence, and
+hinting at his ultimate intentions. He must tell her that, of course,
+while he was at college he was not in a position to offer his heart and
+hand, but if she could wait---- He began to compose speeches in his
+mind.
+
+They reached the bank and opened the luncheon baskets. Unhampered by
+Robert the cook had surpassed herself. They spread the white cloth and
+took up their position around it under the shade of the trees.
+
+Just as Robert was taking up a plate of sandwiches to hand them with a
+courteous gesture to Miss Cannon, his eyes fell upon the long, white
+road leading from the village to the riverside and remained fixed there,
+his face frozen with horror. The hand that held the plate dropped
+lifelessly back again on to the table-cloth. Their eyes followed his. A
+curious figure was cycling along the road--a figure with blackened face
+and a few drooping feathers on its head, and a door-mat flying in the
+wind. A crowd of small children ran behind cheering. It was a figure
+vaguely familiar to them all.
+
+"It can't be," said Robert hoarsely, passing a hand over his brow.
+
+No one spoke.
+
+It came nearer and nearer. There was no mistaking it.
+
+"William!" gasped four voices.
+
+William came to the end of the road. He did not turn aside to either of
+the roads by the riverside. He did not even recognise or look at them.
+With set, colourless face he rode on to the river bank, and straight
+amongst them. They fled from before his charge. He rode over the
+table-cloth, over the sandwiches, patties, rolls and cakes, down the
+bank and into the river.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They rescued him and the bicycle. Fate was against Robert even there. It
+was a passing boatman who performed the rescue. William emerged soaked
+to the skin, utterly exhausted, but feeling vaguely heroic. He was not
+in the least surprised to see them. He would have been surprised at
+nothing. And Robert wiped and examined his battered bicycle in impotent
+fury in the background while Miss Cannon pillowed William's dripping
+head on her arm, fed him on hot coffee and sandwiches and called him "My
+poor darling Red Hand!"
+
+[Illustration: HE RODE OVER THE TABLE-CLOTH, OVER THE SANDWICHES AND
+PATTIES, DOWN THE BANK AND INTO THE RIVER.]
+
+She insisted on going home with him. All through the journey she
+sustained the character of his faithful squaw. Then, leaving a casual
+invitation to Robert and Ethel to come over to tea, she departed to
+pack.
+
+Mrs. Brown descended the stairs from William's room with a tray on which
+reposed a half-empty bowl of gruel, and met Robert in the hall.
+
+"Robert," she remonstrated, "you really needn't look so upset."
+
+Robert glared at her and laughed a hollow laugh.
+
+"Upset!" he echoed, outraged by the inadequacy of the expression. "You'd
+be upset if your life was ruined. You'd be upset. I've a _right_ to be
+upset."
+
+He passed his hand desperately through his already ruffled hair.
+
+"You're going there to tea," she reminded him.
+
+"Yes," he said bitterly, "with other people. Who can talk with other
+people there? No one can. I'd have talked to her on the river. I'd got
+heaps of things ready in my mind to say. And William comes along and
+spoils my whole life--and my bicycle. And she's the most beautiful girl
+I've ever seen in my life. And I've wanted that bicycle for ever so
+long and it's not fit to ride."
+
+"But poor William has caught a very bad chill, dear, so you oughtn't to
+feel bitter to him. And he'll have to pay for your bicycle being mended.
+He'll have no pocket money till it's paid for."
+
+"You'd think," said Robert with a despairing gesture in the direction of
+the hall table and apparently addressing it, "you'd think four grown-up
+people in a house could keep a boy of William's age in order, wouldn't
+you? You'd think he wouldn't be allowed to go about spoiling people's
+lives and--and ruining their bicycles. Well, he jolly well won't do it
+again," he ended darkly.
+
+Mrs. Brown, proceeded in the direction of the kitchen.
+
+"Robert," she said soothingly over her shoulder, "you surely want to be
+at peace with your little brother, when he's not well, don't you?"
+
+"_Peace?_" he said. Robert turned his haggard countenance upon her as
+though his ears must have deceived him. "_Peace!_ I'll wait. I'll wait
+till he's all right and going about; I won't start till then.
+But--peace! It's not peace, it's an _armistice_--that's all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WILLIAM BELOW STAIRS
+
+
+William was feeling embittered with life in general. He was passing
+through one of his not infrequent periods of unpopularity. The climax
+had come with the gift of sixpence bestowed on him by a timid aunt, who
+hoped thus to purchase his goodwill. With the sixpence he had bought a
+balloon adorned with the legs and head of a duck fashioned in cardboard.
+This could be blown up to its fullest extent and then left to subside.
+It took several minutes to subside, and during those minutes it emitted
+a long-drawn-out and high-pitched groan. The advantage of this was
+obvious. William could blow it up to its fullest extent in private and
+leave it to subside in public concealed beneath his coat. While this was
+going on William looked round as though in bewildered astonishment. He
+inflated it before he went to breakfast. He then held it firmly and
+secretly so as to keep it inflated till he was sitting at the table.
+Then he let it subside. His mother knocked over a cup of coffee, and his
+father cut himself with the bread knife. Ethel, his elder sister,
+indulged in a mild form of nervous breakdown. William sat with a face of
+startled innocence. But nothing enraged his family so much as William's
+expression of innocence. They fell upon him, and he defended himself as
+well as he could. Yes, he was holding the balloon under the table. Well,
+he'd blown it up some time ago. He couldn't keep it blown up for ever.
+He had to let the air out some time. He couldn't help it making a noise
+when the air went out. It was the way it was made. He hadn't made it. He
+set off to school with an air of injured innocence--and the balloon.
+Observing an elderly and irascible-looking gentleman in front of him, he
+went a few steps down a back street, blew up his balloon and held it
+tightly under his coat. Then, when abreast of the old gentleman, he let
+it off. The old gentleman gave a leap into the air and glared fiercely
+around. He glanced at the small virtuous-looking schoolboy with
+obviously no instrument of torture at his lips, and then concentrated
+his glare of fury and suspicion on the upper windows. William hastened
+on to the next pedestrian. He had quite a happy walk to school.
+
+School was at first equally successful. William opened his desk, hastily
+inflated his balloon, closed his desk, then gazed round with his
+practised expression of horrified astonishment at what followed. He
+drove the French master to distraction.
+
+"Step out 'oo makes the noise," he screamed.
+
+No one stepped out, and the noise continued at intervals.
+
+The mathematics master finally discovered and confiscated the balloon.
+
+"I hope," said the father at lunch, "that they've taken away that
+infernal machine of yours."
+
+William replied sadly that they had. He added that some people didn't
+seem to think it was stealing to take other people's things.
+
+"Then we may look forward to a little peace this evening?" said the
+father politely. "Not that it matters to me, as I'm going out to dinner.
+The only thing that relieves the tedium of going out to dinner is the
+fact that for a short time one has a rest from William."
+
+William acknowledged the compliment by a scowl and a mysterious muttered
+remark to the effect that some people were always at him.
+
+During preparation in afternoon school he read a story-book kindly lent
+him by his next-door neighbour. It was not because he had no work to do
+that William read a story-book in preparation. It was a mark of defiance
+to the world in general. It was also a very interesting story-book. It
+opened with the hero as a small boy misunderstood and ill-treated by
+everyone around him. Then he ran away. He went to sea, and in a few
+years made an immense fortune in the goldfields. He returned in the last
+chapter and forgave his family and presented them with a noble mansion
+and several shiploads of gold. The idea impressed William--all except
+the end part. He thought he'd prefer to have the noble mansion himself
+and pay rare visits to his family, during which he would listen to their
+humble apologies, and perhaps give them a nugget or two, but not very
+much--certainly not much to Ethel. He wasn't sure whether he'd ever
+really forgive them. He'd have rooms full of squeaky balloons and
+trumpets in his house anyway, and he'd keep caterpillars and white rats
+all over the place too--things they made such a fuss about in their old
+house--and he'd always go about in dirty boots, and he'd never brush his
+hair or wash, and he'd keep dozens of motor-cars, and he wouldn't let
+Ethel go out in any of them. He was roused from this enthralling
+day-dream by the discovery and confiscation of his story-book by the
+master in charge, and the subsequent fury of its owner. In order
+adequately to express his annoyance, he dropped a little ball of
+blotting-paper soaked in ink down William's back. William, on attempting
+retaliation, was sentenced to stay in half an hour after school. He
+returned gloomily to his history book (upside down) and his misanthropic
+view of life. He compared himself bitterly with the hero of the
+story-book and decided not to waste another moment of his life in
+uncongenial surroundings. He made a firm determination to run away as
+soon as he was released from school.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He walked briskly down the road away from the village. In his pocket
+reposed the balloon. He had made the cheering discovery that the
+mathematics master had left it on his desk, so he had joyfully taken it
+again into his possession. He thought he might reach the coast before
+night, and get to the goldfields before next week. He didn't suppose it
+took long to make a fortune there. He might be back before next
+Christmas and--crumbs! he'd jolly well make people sit up. He wouldn't
+go to school, for one thing, and he'd be jolly careful who he gave
+nuggets to for another. He'd give nuggets to the butcher's boy and the
+postman, and the man who came to tune the piano, and the chimney-sweep.
+He wouldn't give any to any of his family, or any of the masters at the
+school. He'd just serve people out the way they served him. He just
+would. The road to the coast seemed rather long, and he was growing
+rather tired. He walked in a ditch for a change, and then scraped
+through a hedge and took a short cut across a ploughed field. Dusk was
+falling fast, and even William's buoyant spirits began to flag. The
+fortune part was all very well, but in the meantime he was cold and
+tired and hungry. He hadn't yet reached the coast, much less the
+goldfields. Something must be done. He remembered that the boy in the
+story had "begged his way" to the coast. William determined to beg his.
+But at present there seemed nothing to beg it from, except a hawthorn
+hedge and a scarecrow in the field behind it. He wandered on
+disconsolately deciding to begin his career as a beggar at the first
+sign of human habitation.
+
+At last he discovered a pair of iron gates through the dusk and,
+assuming an expression of patient suffering calculated to melt a heart
+of stone, walked up the drive. At the front door he smoothed down his
+hair (he had lost his cap on the way), pulled up his stockings, and rang
+the bell. After an interval a stout gentleman in the garb of a butler
+opened the door and glared ferociously up and down William.
+
+"Please----" began William plaintively.
+
+The stout gentleman interrupted.
+
+"If you're the new Boots," he said majestically, "go round to the back
+door. If you're not, go away."
+
+[Illustration: "IF YOU'RE THE NEW BOOTS," HE SAID MAJESTICALLY, "GO
+ROUND TO THE BACK DOOR."]
+
+He then shut the door in William's face. William, on the top step,
+considered the question for a few minutes. It was dark and cold, with
+every prospect of becoming darker and colder. He decided to be the new
+Boots. He found his way round to the back door and knocked firmly. It
+was opened by a large woman in a print dress and apron.
+
+"What y' want?" she said aggressively.
+
+"He said," said William firmly, "to come round if I was the new Boots."
+
+The woman surveyed him in grim disapproval.
+
+"You bin round to the front?" she said. "Nerve!"
+
+Her disapproval increased to suspicion.
+
+"Where's your things?" she said.
+
+"Comin'," said William without a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Too tired to bring 'em with you?" she said sarcastically. "All right.
+Come in!"
+
+William came in gratefully. It was a large, warm, clean kitchen. A small
+kitchen-maid was peeling potatoes at a sink, and a housemaid in black,
+with a frilled cap and apron, was powdering her nose before a glass on
+the wall. They both turned to stare at William.
+
+"'Ere's the new Boots," announced Cook, "'is valet's bringin' 'is things
+later."
+
+The housemaid looked up William from his muddy boots to his untidy hair,
+then down William from his untidy hair to his muddy boots.
+
+"Imperdent-lookin' child," she commented haughtily, returning to her
+task.
+
+William decided inwardly that she was to have no share at all in the
+nuggets.
+
+The kitchen-maid giggled and winked at William, with obviously friendly
+intent. William mentally promised her half a ship-load of nuggets.
+
+"Now, then, Smutty," said the house-maid with out turning round, "none
+of your sauce!"
+
+"'Ad your tea?" said the cook to William. William's spirits rose.
+
+"No," he said plaintively.
+
+"All right. Sit down at the table."
+
+William's spirits soared sky high.
+
+He sat at the table and the cook put a large plate of bread and butter
+before him.
+
+William set to work at once. The house-maid regarded him scornfully.
+
+"Learnt 'is way of eatin' at the Zoo," she said pityingly.
+
+The kitchen-maid giggled again and gave William another wink. William
+had given himself up to whole-hearted epicurean enjoying of his bread
+and butter and took no notice of them. At this moment the butler
+entered.
+
+He subjected the quite unmoved William to another long survey.
+
+"When next you come a-hentering of this 'ouse, my boy," he said, "kindly
+remember that the front door is reserved for gentry an' the back for
+brats."
+
+William merely looked at him coldly over a hunk of bread and butter.
+Mentally he knocked him off the list of nugget-receivers.
+
+The butler looked sadly round the room.
+
+"They're all the same," he lamented. "Eat, eat, eat. Nothin' but eat.
+Eat all day an' eat all night. 'E's not bin in the 'ouse two minutes an'
+'e's at it. Eat! eat! eat! 'E'll 'ave all the buttons bust off his
+uniform in a week like wot the larst one 'ad. Like eatin' better than
+workin', don't you?" he said sarcastically to William.
+
+"Yes, I do, too," said William with firm conviction.
+
+The kitchen-maid giggled again, and the housemaid gave a sigh expressive
+of scorn and weariness as she drew a thin pencil over her eyebrows.
+
+"Well, if you've quite finished, my lord," said the butler in ponderous
+irony, "I'll show you to your room."
+
+William indicated that he had quite finished, and was led up to a very
+small bed-room. Over a chair lay a page's uniform with the conventional
+row of brass buttons down the front of the coat.
+
+"Togs," explained the butler briefly. "Your togs. Fix 'em on quick as
+you can. There's company to dinner to-night."
+
+William fixed them on.
+
+"You're smaller than wot the last one was," said the butler critically.
+"They 'ang a bit loose. Never mind. With a week or two of stuffin'
+you'll 'ave most probable bust 'em, so it's as well to 'ang loose first.
+Now, come on. 'Oo's bringing over your things?"
+
+"E--a friend," explained William.
+
+"I suppose it _is_ a bit too much to expeck you to carry your own
+parcels," went on the butler, "in these 'ere days. Bloomin' Bolshevist,
+I speck, aren't you?"
+
+William condescended to explain himself.
+
+"I'm a gold-digger," he said.
+
+"Criky!" said the butler.
+
+William was led down again to the kitchen.
+
+The butler threw open a door that led to a small pantry.
+
+"This 'ere is where you work, and this 'ere," pointing to a large
+kitchen, "is where you live. You 'ave not," he ended haughtily "the
+hentry into the servants' 'all."
+
+"Crumbs!" said William.
+
+"You might has well begin at once," went on the butler, "there's all
+this lunch's knives to clean. 'Ere's a hapron, 'ere's the knife-board
+an' 'ere's the knife-powder."
+
+He shut the bewildered William into the small pantry and turned to the
+cook.
+
+"What do you think of 'im?" he said.
+
+"'E looks," said the cook gloomily, "the sort of boy we'll 'ave trouble
+with."
+
+"Not much clarse," said the house-maid, arranging her frilled apron. "It
+surprises me 'ow any creature like a boy can grow into an experienced,
+sensible, broad-minded man like you, Mr. Biggs."
+
+Mr. Biggs simpered and straightened his necktie.
+
+"Well," he admitted, "as a boy, of course, I wasn't like 'im."
+
+Here the pantry-door opened and William's face, plentifully adorned with
+knife-powder came round.
+
+"I've done some of the knives," he said, "shall I be doin' something
+else and finish the others afterwards?"
+
+"'Ow many 'ave you done?" said Mr. Biggs.
+
+"One or two," said William vaguely, then with a concession to accuracy,
+"well, two. But I'm feeling tired of doin' knives."
+
+The kitchen-maid emitted a scream of delight and the cook heaved a deep
+sigh.
+
+The butler advanced slowly and majestically towards William's tousled
+head, which was still craned around the pantry door.
+
+"You'll finish them knives, my boy," he said, "or----"
+
+William considered the weight and size of Mr. Biggs.
+
+"All right," he said pacifically. "I'll finish the knives."
+
+He disappeared, closing the pantry door behind him.
+
+"'E's goin' to be a trile," said the cook, "an' no mistake."
+
+"Trile's 'ardly the word," said Mr. Biggs.
+
+"Haffliction," supplied the housemaid.
+
+"That's more like it," said Mr. Biggs.
+
+Here William's head appeared again.
+
+"Wot time's supper?" he said.
+
+He retired precipitately at a hysterical shriek from the kitchen-maid
+and a roar of fury from the butler.
+
+"You'd better go an' do your potatoes in the pantry," said the cook to
+the kitchenmaid, "and let's 'ave a bit of peace in 'ere and see 'e's
+doin' of 'is work all right."
+
+The kitchenmaid departed joyfully to the pantry.
+
+William was sitting by the table, idly toying with a knife. He had
+experimented upon the knife powder by mixing it with water, and the
+little brown pies that were the result lay in a row on the mantelpiece.
+He had also tasted it, as the dark stains upon his lips testified. His
+hair was standing straight up on his head as it always did when life was
+strenuous. He began the conversation.
+
+"You'd be surprised," he said, "if you knew what I really was."
+
+She giggled.
+
+"Go on!" she said. "What are you?"
+
+"I'm a gold-digger," he said. "I've got ship-loads an' ship-loads of
+gold. At least, I will have soon. I'm not goin' to give _him_," pointing
+towards the door, "any, nor any of them in there."
+
+"Wot about me?" said the kitchenmaid, winking at the cat as the only
+third person to be let into the joke.
+
+"You," said William graciously, "shall have a whole lot of nuggets. Look
+here." With a princely flourish he took up a knife and cut off three
+buttons from the middle of his coat and gave them to her. "You keep
+those and they'll be kind of tokens. See? When I come home rich you show
+me the buttons an' I'll remember and give you the nuggets. See? I'll
+maybe marry you," he promised, "if I've not married anyone else."
+
+The kitchenmaid put her head round the pantry door.
+
+"'E's loony," she said. "It's lovely listening to 'im talkin.'"
+
+Further conversation was prevented by the ringing of the front-door bell
+and the arrival of the "company."
+
+Mr. Biggs and the housemaid departed to do the honours. The kitchenmaid
+ran to help with the dishing up, and William was left sitting on the
+pantry table, idly making patterns in knife powder with his finger.
+
+[Illustration: "I'M A GOLD DIGGER," SAID WILLIAM. "I'VE GOT SHIPLOADS
+AN' SHIPLOADS OF GOLD. AT LEAST, I WILL HAVE SOON."]
+
+"Wot was 'e doin'?" said the cook to the kitchenmaid.
+
+"Nothin'--'cept talkin'," said the kitchenmaid. "'E's a cure, _'e_ is,"
+she added.
+
+"If you've finished the knives," called out the cook, "there's some
+boots and shoes on the floor to be done. Brushes an' blacking on the
+shelf."
+
+William arose with alacrity. He thought boots would be more interesting
+than knives. He carefully concealed the pile of uncleaned knives behind
+the knife-box and began on the shoes.
+
+The butler returned.
+
+"Soup ready?" he said. "The company's just goin' into the dining-room--a
+pal of the master's. Decent-lookin' bloke," he added patronisingly.
+
+William, in his pantry, had covered a brush very thickly with blacking,
+and was putting it in heavy layers on the boots and shoes. A large part
+of it adhered to his own hands. The butler looked in at him.
+
+"Wot's 'appened to your buttons?" he said sternly.
+
+"Come off," said William.
+
+"Bust off," corrected the butler. "I said so soon as I saw you. I said
+you'd 'ave eat your buttons bust off in a week. Well, you've eat 'em
+bust off in ten minutes."
+
+"Eatin' an' destroyin' of 'is clothes," he said gloomily, returning to
+the kitchen. "It's all boys ever do--eatin' an' destroyin' of their
+clothes."
+
+He went out with the soup and William was left with the boots. He was
+getting tired of boots. He'd covered them all thickly with blacking, and
+he didn't know what to do next. Then suddenly he remembered his balloon
+in his pocket upstairs. It might serve to vary the monotony of life. He
+slipped quietly upstairs for it, and then returned to his boots.
+
+Soon Mr. Biggs and the housemaid returned with the empty soup-plates.
+Then through the kitchen resounded a high-pitched squeal, dying away
+slowly and shrilly.
+
+The housemaid screamed.
+
+"Lawks!" said the cook, "someone's atorchurin' of the poor cat to death.
+It'll be that blessed boy."
+
+The butler advanced manfully and opened the pantry door. William stood
+holding in one hand an inflated balloon with the cardboard head and legs
+of a duck.
+
+The butler approached him.
+
+"If you let off that there thing once more, you little varmint," he
+said, "I'll----"
+
+Threateningly he had advanced his large expanse of countenance very
+close to William's. Acting upon a sudden uncontrollable impulse William
+took up the brush thickly smeared with blacking and pushed back Mr.
+Biggs's face with it.
+
+There was a moment's silence of sheer horror, then Mr. Biggs hurled
+himself furiously upon William....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the dining-room sat the master and mistress of the house and their
+guest.
+
+"Did the new Boots arrive?" said the master to his wife.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM TOOK UP THE BRUSH, THICKLY SMEARED WITH BLACKING,
+AND PUSHED BACK MR. BIGGS'S FACE WITH IT.]
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Any good?" he said.
+
+"He doesn't seem to have impressed Biggs very favourably," she said,
+"but they never do."
+
+"The human boy," said the guest, "is given us as a discipline. I possess
+one. Though he is my own son, I find it difficult to describe the
+atmosphere of peace and relief that pervades the house when he is out of
+it."
+
+"I'd like to meet your son," said the host.
+
+"You probably will, sooner or later," said the guest gloomily. "Everyone
+in the neighbourhood meets him sooner or later. He does not hide his
+light under a bushel. Personally, I prefer people who haven't met him.
+They can't judge me by him."
+
+At this moment the butler came in with a note.
+
+"No answer," he said, and departed with his slow dignity.
+
+"Excuse me," said the lady as she opened it, "it's from my sister. 'I
+hope,' she read, 'that you aren't inconvenienced much by the non-arrival
+of the Boots I engaged for you. He's got "flu."' But he's come," she
+said wonderingly.
+
+There came the sound of an angry shout, a distant scream and the
+clattering of heavy running footsteps ... growing nearer....
+
+"A revolution, I expect," said the guest wearily. "The Reds are upon
+us."
+
+At that moment the door was burst open and in rushed a boy with a
+blacking brush in one hand and an inflated balloon in the other. He was
+much dishevelled, with three buttons off the front of his uniform, and
+his face streaked with knife powder and blacking. Behind him ran a fat
+butler, his face purple with fury beneath a large smear of blacking. The
+boy rushed round the table, slipped on the polished floor, clutched
+desperately at the neck of the guest, bringing both guest and chair down
+upon the floor beside him. In a sudden silence of utter paralysed
+horror, guest and boy sat on the floor and stared at each other. Then
+the boy's nerveless hand relaxed its hold upon the balloon, which had
+somehow or other survived the vicissitudes of the flight, and a shrill
+squeak rang through the silence of the room.
+
+The master and mistress of the house sat looking round in dazed
+astonishment.
+
+As the guest looked at the boy there appeared on his countenance
+amazement, then incredulity, and finally frozen horror. As the boy
+looked at the guest there appeared on his countenance amazement, then
+incredulity and finally blank dejection.
+
+"Good Lord!" said the guest, "it's _William_!"
+
+"Oh, crumbs!" said the Boots, "it's _father_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FALL OF THE IDOL
+
+
+William was bored. He sat at his desk in the sunny schoolroom and gazed
+dispassionately at a row of figures on the blackboard.
+
+"It isn't _sense_," he murmured scornfully.
+
+Miss Drew was also bored, but, unlike William, she tried to hide the
+fact.
+
+"If the interest on a hundred pounds for one year is five pounds," she
+said wearily, then, "William Brown, do sit up and don't look so stupid!"
+
+William changed his position from that of lolling over one side of his
+desk to that of lolling over the other, and began to justify himself.
+
+"Well, I can't unner_stand_ any of it. It's enough to make anyone look
+stupid when he can't unner_stand_ any of it. I can't think why people go
+on givin' people bits of money for givin' 'em lots of money and go on
+an' on doin' it. It dun't seem sense. Anyone's a mug for givin' anyone a
+hundred pounds just 'cause he says he'll go on givin' him five pounds
+and go on stickin' to his hundred pounds. How's he to _know_ he will?
+Well," he warmed to his subject, "what's to stop him not givin' any five
+pounds once he's got hold of the hundred pounds an' goin' on stickin'
+to the hundred pounds----"
+
+Miss Drew checked him by a slim, upraised hand.
+
+"William," she said patiently, "just listen to me. Now suppose," her
+eyes roved round the room and settled on a small red-haired boy,
+"suppose that Eric wanted a hundred pounds for something and you lent it
+to him----"
+
+"I wun't lend Eric a hundred pounds," he said firmly, "'cause I ha'n't
+got it. I've only got 31/2d., an' I wun't lend that to Eric, 'cause I'm
+not such a mug, 'cause I lent him my mouth-organ once an' he bit a bit
+off an'----"
+
+Miss Drew interrupted sharply. Teaching on a hot afternoon is rather
+trying.
+
+"You'd better stay in after school, William, and I'll explain."
+
+William scowled, emitted his monosyllable of scornful disdain "Huh!" and
+relapsed into gloom.
+
+He brightened, however, on remembering a lizard he had caught on the way
+to school, and drew it from its hiding-place in his pocket. But the
+lizard had abandoned the unequal struggle for existence among the
+stones, top, penknife, bits of putty, and other small objects that
+inhabited William's pocket. The housing problem had been too much for
+it.
+
+William in disgust shrouded the remains in blotting paper, and disposed
+of it in his neighbour's ink-pot. The neighbour protested and an
+enlivening scrimmage ensued.
+
+Finally the lizard was dropped down the neck of an inveterate enemy of
+William's in the next row, and was extracted only with the help of
+obliging friends. Threats of vengeance followed, couched in
+blood-curdling terms, and written on blotting-paper.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Drew explained Simple Practice to a small but earnest
+coterie of admirers in the front row. And William, in the back row,
+whiled away the hours for which his father paid the education
+authorities a substantial sum.
+
+But his turn was to come.
+
+At the end of afternoon school one by one the class departed, leaving
+William only nonchalantly chewing an india-rubber and glaring at Miss
+Drew.
+
+"Now, William."
+
+Miss Drew was severely patient.
+
+William went up to the platform and stood by her desk.
+
+"You see, if someone borrows a hundred pounds from someone else----"
+
+She wrote down the figures on a piece of paper, bending low over her
+desk. The sun poured in through the window, showing the little golden
+curls in the nape of her neck. She lifted to William eyes that were
+stern and frowning, but blue as blue above flushed cheeks.
+
+"Don't you _see_, William?" she said.
+
+There was a faint perfume about her, and William the devil-may-care
+pirate and robber-chief, the stern despiser of all things effeminate,
+felt the first dart of the malicious blind god. He blushed and simpered.
+
+"Yes, I see all about it now," he assured her. "You've explained it all
+plain now. I cudn't unner_stand_ it before. It's a bit soft--in't
+it--anyway, to go lending hundred pounds about just 'cause someone
+says they'll give you five pounds next year. Some folks is mugs. But I
+do unner_stand_ now. I cudn't unnerstand it before."
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM FELT THE FIRST DART OF THE LITTLE BLIND GOD. HE
+BLUSHED AND SIMPERED.]
+
+"You'd have found it simpler if you hadn't played with dead lizards all
+the time," she said wearily, closing her books.
+
+William gasped.
+
+He went home her devoted slave. Certain members of the class always
+deposited dainty bouquets on her desk in the morning. William was
+determined to outshine the rest. He went into the garden with a large
+basket and a pair of scissors the next morning before he set out for
+school.
+
+It happened that no one was about. He went first to the hothouse. It was
+a riot of colour. He worked there with a thoroughness and concentration
+worthy of a nobler cause. He came out staggering beneath a piled-up
+basket of hothouse blooms. The hothouse itself was bare and desolate.
+
+Hearing a sound in the back garden he hastily decided to delay no
+longer, but to set out to school at once. He set out as unostentatiously
+as possible.
+
+Miss Drew, entering her class-room, was aghast to see instead of the
+usual small array of buttonholes on her desk, a mass of already
+withering hothouse flowers completely covering her desk and chair.
+
+William was a boy who never did things by halves.
+
+"Good Heavens!" she cried in consternation.
+
+William blushed with pleasure.
+
+He changed his seat to one in the front row. All that morning he sat,
+his eyes fixed on her earnestly, dreaming of moments in which he
+rescued her from robbers and pirates (here he was somewhat inconsistent
+with his own favourite _role_ of robber-chief and pirate), and bore her
+fainting in his strong arms to safety. Then she clung to him in love and
+gratitude, and they were married at once by the Archbishops of
+Canterbury and York.
+
+William would have no half-measures. They were to be married by the
+Archbishops of Canterbury and York, or else the Pope. He wasn't sure
+that he wouldn't rather have the Pope. He would wear his black pirate
+suit with the skull and cross-bones. No, that would not do----
+
+"What have I just been saying, William?" said Miss Drew.
+
+William coughed and gazed at her soulfully.
+
+"'Bout lendin' money?" he said, hopefully.
+
+"William!" she snapped. "This isn't an arithmetic lesson. I'm trying to
+teach you about the Armada."
+
+"Oh, _that_!" said William brightly and ingratiatingly. "Oh, yes."
+
+"Tell me something about it."
+
+"I don't _know_ anything--not jus' yet----"
+
+"I've been _telling_ you about it. I do wish you'd listen," she said
+despairingly.
+
+William relapsed into silence, nonplussed, but by no means cowed.
+
+When he reached home that evening he found that the garden was the scene
+of excitement and hubbub. One policeman was measuring the panes of glass
+in the conservatory door, and another was on his knees examining the
+beds near. His grown-up sister, Ethel, was standing at the front door.
+
+"Every single flower has been stolen from the conservatory some time
+this morning," she said excitedly. "We've only just been able to get the
+police. William, did you see any one about when you went to school this
+morning?"
+
+William pondered deeply. His most guileless and innocent expression came
+to his face.
+
+"No," he said at last. "No, Ethel, I didn't see nobody."
+
+William coughed and discreetly withdrew.
+
+That evening he settled down at the library table, spreading out his
+books around him, a determined frown upon his small face.
+
+His father was sitting in an armchair by the window reading the evening
+paper.
+
+"Father," said William suddenly, "s'pose I came to you an' said you was
+to give me a hundred pounds an' I'd give you five pounds next year an'
+so on, would you give it me?"
+
+"I should not, my son," said his father firmly.
+
+William sighed.
+
+"I knew there was something wrong with it," he said.
+
+Mr. Brown returned to the leading article, but not for long.
+
+"Father, what was the date of the Armada?"
+
+"Good Heavens! How should I know? I wasn't there."
+
+William sighed.
+
+"Well, I'm tryin' to write about it and why it failed an'--why did it
+fail?"
+
+Mr. Brown groaned, gathered up his paper, and retired to the
+dining-room.
+
+He had almost finished the leading article when William appeared, his
+arms full of books, and sat down quietly at the table.
+
+"Father, what's the French for 'my aunt is walking in the garden'?"
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" said Mr. Brown irritably.
+
+"I'm doing my home-lessons," said William virtuously.
+
+"I never even knew you had the things to do."
+
+"No," William admitted gently, "I don't generally take much bother over
+them, but I'm goin' to now--'cause Miss Drew"--he blushed slightly and
+paused--"'cause Miss Drew"--he blushed more deeply and began to stammer,
+"'c--cause Miss Drew"--he was almost apoplectic.
+
+Mr. Brown quietly gathered up his paper and crept out to the verandah,
+where his wife sat with the week's mending.
+
+"William's gone raving mad in the dining-room," he said pleasantly, as
+he sat down. "Takes the form of a wild thirst for knowledge, and a
+babbling of a Miss Drawing, or Drew, or something. He's best left
+alone."
+
+Mrs. Brown merely smiled placidly over the mending.
+
+Mr. Brown had finished one leading article and begun another before
+William appeared again. He stood in the doorway frowning and stern.
+
+"Father, what's the capital of Holland?"
+
+"Good Heavens!" said his father. "Buy him an encyclopedia. Anything,
+anything. What does he think I am? What----"
+
+"I'd better set apart a special room for his homework," said Mrs. Brown
+soothingly, "now that he's beginning to take such an interest."
+
+"A room!" echoed his father bitterly. "He wants a whole house."
+
+Miss Drew was surprised and touched by William's earnestness and
+attention the next day. At the end of the afternoon school he kindly
+offered to carry her books home for her. He waved aside all protests. He
+marched home by her side discoursing pleasantly, his small freckled face
+beaming devotion.
+
+"I like pirates, don't you, Miss Drew? An' robbers an' things like that?
+Miss Drew, would you like to be married to a robber?"
+
+He was trying to reconcile his old beloved dream of his future estate
+with the new one of becoming Miss Drew's husband.
+
+"No," she said firmly.
+
+His heart sank.
+
+"Nor a pirate?" he said sadly.
+
+"No."
+
+"They're quite nice really--pirates," he assured her.
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Well," he said resignedly, "we'll jus' have to go huntin' wild animals
+and things. That'll be all right."
+
+"Who?" she said, bewildered.
+
+"Well--jus' you wait," he said darkly.
+
+Then: "Would you rather be married by the Archbishop of York or the
+Pope?"
+
+"The Archbishop, I think," she said gravely.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"All right."
+
+She was distinctly amused. She was less amused the next evening. Miss
+Drew had a male cousin--a very nice-looking male cousin, with whom she
+often went for walks in the evening. This evening, by chance, they
+passed William's house, and William, who was in the garden, threw aside
+his temporary _role_ of pirate and joined them. He trotted happily on
+the other side of Miss Drew. He entirely monopolised the conversation.
+The male cousin seemed to encourage him, and this annoyed Miss Drew. He
+refused to depart in spite of Miss Drew's strong hints. He had various
+items of interest to impart, and he imparted them with the air of one
+assured of an appreciative hearing. He had found a dead rat the day
+before and given it to his dog, but his dog didn't like 'em dead and
+neither did the ole cat, so he'd buried it. Did Miss Drew like all those
+flowers he'd got her the other day? He was afraid that he cudn't bring
+any more like that jus' yet. Were there pirates now? Well, what would
+folks do to one if there was one? He din't see why there shun't be
+pirates now. He thought he'd start it, anyway. He'd like to shoot a
+lion. He was goin' to one day. He'd shoot a lion an' a tiger. He'd bring
+the skin home to Miss Drew, if she liked. He grew recklessly generous.
+He'd bring home lots of skins of all sorts of animals for Miss Drew.
+
+"Don't you think you ought to be going home, William?" said Miss Drew
+coldly.
+
+William hastened to reassure her.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM HAD VARIOUS ITEMS OF INTEREST TO IMPART, AND HE
+IMPARTED THEM WITH THE AIR OF ONE ASSURED OF AN APPRECIATIVE HEARING.]
+
+"Oh, no--not for ever so long yet," he said.
+
+"Isn't it your bed-time?"
+
+"Oh, no--not yet--not for ever so long."
+
+The male cousin was giving William his whole attention.
+
+"What does Miss Drew teach you at school, William?" he said.
+
+"Oh, jus' ornery things. Armadas an' things. An' 'bout lending a hundred
+pounds. That's a norful _soft_ thing. I unner_stand_ it," he added
+hastily, fearing further explanation, "but it's _soft_. My father thinks
+it is, too, an' he oughter _know_. He's bin abroad lots of times. He's
+bin chased by a bull, my father has----"
+
+The shades of night were falling fast when William reached Miss Drew's
+house still discoursing volubly. He was drunk with success. He
+interpreted his idol's silence as the silence of rapt admiration.
+
+He was passing through the gate with his two companions with the air of
+one assured of welcome, when Miss Drew shut the gate upon him firmly.
+
+"You'd better go home now, William," she said.
+
+William hesitated.
+
+"I don't mind comin' in a bit," he said. "I'm not tired."
+
+But Miss Drew and the male cousin were already half-way up the walk.
+
+William turned his steps homeward. He met Ethel near the gate.
+
+"William, where _have_ you been? I've been looking for you everywhere.
+It's _hours_ past your bed-time."
+
+"I was goin' a walk with Miss Drew."
+
+"But you should have come home at your bed-time."
+
+"I don't think she wanted me to go," he said with dignity. "I think it
+wun't of bin p'lite."
+
+William found that a new and serious element had entered his life. It
+was not without its disadvantages. Many had been the little diversions
+by which William had been wont to while away the hours of instruction.
+In spite of his devotion to Miss Drew, he missed the old days of
+care-free exuberance, but he kept his new seat in the front row, and
+clung to his _role_ of earnest student. He was beginning to find also,
+that a conscientious performance of home lessons limited his activities
+after school hours, but at present he hugged his chains. Miss Drew, from
+her seat on the platform, found William's soulful concentrated gaze
+somewhat embarrassing, and his questions even more so.
+
+As he went out of school he heard her talking to another mistress.
+
+"I'm very fond of syringa," she was saying. "I'd love to have some."
+
+William decided to bring her syringa, handfuls of syringa, armfuls of
+syringa.
+
+He went straight home to the gardener.
+
+"No, I ain't got no syringa. Please step off my rose-bed, Mister
+William. No, there ain't any syringa in this 'ere garding. I dunno for
+why. Please leave my 'ose pipe alone, Mister William."
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated William, scornfully turning away.
+
+He went round the garden. The gardener had been quite right. There were
+guelder roses everywhere, but no syringa.
+
+He climbed the fence and surveyed the next garden. There were guelder
+roses everywhere, but no syringa. It must have been some peculiarity in
+the soil.
+
+William strolled down the road, scanning the gardens as he went. All had
+guelder roses. None had syringa.
+
+Suddenly he stopped.
+
+On a table in the window of a small house at the bottom of the road was
+a vase of syringa. He did not know who lived there. He entered the
+garden cautiously. No one was about.
+
+He looked into the room. It was empty. The window was open at the
+bottom.
+
+He scrambled in, removing several layers of white paint from the
+window-sill as he did so. He was determined to have that syringa. He
+took it dripping from the vase, and was preparing to depart, when the
+door opened and a fat woman appeared upon the threshold. The scream that
+she emitted at sight of William curdled the very blood in his veins. She
+dashed to the window, and William, in self-defence, dodged round the
+table and out of the door. The back door was open, and William blindly
+fled by it. The fat woman did not pursue. She was leaning out of the
+window, and her shrieks rent the air.
+
+"Police! Help! Murder! Robbers!"
+
+The quiet little street rang with the raucous sounds.
+
+William felt cold shivers creeping up and down his spine. He was in a
+small back garden from which he could see no exit.
+
+Meanwhile the shrieks were redoubled.
+
+[Illustration: THE DOOR OPENED AND A FAT WOMAN APPEARED ON THE
+THRESHOLD.]
+
+"Help! _Help!_ _Help!_"
+
+Then came sounds of the front-door opening and men's voices.
+
+"Hello! Who is it? What is it?"
+
+William glared round wildly. There was a hen-house in the corner of the
+garden, and into this he dashed, tearing open the door and plunging
+through a mass of flying feathers and angry, disturbed hens.
+
+William crouched in a corner of the dark hen-house determinedly
+clutching his bunch of syringa.
+
+Distant voices were at first all he could hear. Then they came nearer,
+and he heard the fat lady's voice loudly declaiming.
+
+"He was quite a small man, but with such an evil face. I just had one
+glimpse of him as he dashed past me. I'm sure he'd have murdered me if I
+hadn't cried for help. Oh, the coward! And a poor defenceless woman! He
+was standing by the silver table. I disturbed him at his work of crime.
+I feel so upset. I shan't sleep for nights. I shall see his evil,
+murderous face. And a poor unarmed woman!"
+
+"Can you give us no details, madam?" said a man's voice. "Could you
+recognise him again?"
+
+"_Anywhere!_" she said firmly. "Such a criminal face. You've no idea how
+upset I am. I might have been a lifeless corpse now, if I hadn't had the
+courage to cry for help."
+
+"We're measuring the footprints, madam. You say he went out by the front
+door?"
+
+"I'm convinced he did. I'm convinced he's hiding in the bushes by the
+gate. Such a low face. My nerves are absolutely jarred."
+
+"We'll search the bushes again, madam," said the other voice wearily,
+"but I expect he has escaped by now."
+
+"The brute!" said the fat lady. "Oh, the _brute_! And that _face_. If I
+hadn't had the courage to cry out----"
+
+The voices died away and William was left alone in a corner of the
+hen-house.
+
+A white hen appeared in the little doorway, squawked at him angrily, and
+retired, cackling indignation. Visions of life-long penal servitude or
+hanging passed before William's eyes. He'd rather be executed, really.
+He hoped they'd execute him.
+
+Then he heard the fat lady bidding good-bye to the policeman. Then she
+came to the back garden evidently with a friend, and continued to pour
+forth her troubles.
+
+"And he _dashed_ past me, dear. Quite a small man, but with such an evil
+face."
+
+A black hen appeared in the little doorway, and with an angry squawk at
+William, returned to the back garden.
+
+"I think you're _splendid_, dear," said the invisible friend. "How you
+had the _courage_."
+
+The white hen gave a sardonic scream.
+
+"You'd better come in and rest, darling," said the friend.
+
+"I'd better," said the fat lady in a plaintive, suffering voice. "I do
+feel very ... shaken...."
+
+Their voices ceased, the door was closed, and all was still.
+
+Cautiously, very cautiously, a much-dishevelled William crept from the
+hen-house and round the side of the house. Here he found a locked
+side-gate over which he climbed, and very quietly he glided down to the
+front gate and to the road.
+
+"Where's William this evening?" said Mrs. Brown. "I do hope he won't
+stay out after his bed-time."
+
+"Oh, I've just met him," said Ethel. "He was going up to his bedroom. He
+was covered with hen feathers and holding a bunch of syringa."
+
+"Mad!" sighed his father. "Mad! mad! mad!"
+
+The next morning William laid a bunch of syringa upon Miss Drew's desk.
+He performed the offering with an air of quiet, manly pride. Miss Drew
+recoiled.
+
+"_Not_ syringa, William. I simply can't _bear_ the smell!"
+
+William gazed at her in silent astonishment for a few moments.
+
+Then: "But you _said_ ... you _said_ ... you said you were fond of
+syringa an' that you'd like to have them."
+
+"Did I say syringa?" said Miss Drew vaguely. "I meant guelder roses."
+
+William's gaze was one of stony contempt.
+
+He went slowly back to his old seat at the back of the room.
+
+That evening he made a bonfire with several choice friends, and played
+Red Indians in the garden. There was a certain thrill in returning to
+the old life.
+
+"Hello!" said his father, encountering William creeping on all fours
+among the bushes. "I thought you did home lessons now?"
+
+William arose to an upright position.
+
+"I'm not goin' to take much bother over 'em now," said William. "Miss
+Drew, she can't talk straight. She dunno what she _means_."
+
+"That's always the trouble with women," agreed his father. "William says
+his idol has feet of clay," he said to his wife, who had approached.
+
+"I dunno as she's got feet of clay," said William, the literal. "All I
+say is she can't talk straight. I took no end of trouble an' she dunno
+what she means. I think her feet's all right. She walks all right.
+'Sides, when they make folks false feet, they make 'em of wood, not
+clay."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SHOW
+
+
+The Outlaws sat around the old barn, plunged in deep thought. Henry, the
+oldest member (aged 121/4) had said in a moment of inspiration:
+
+"Let's think of--sumthin' else to do--sumthin' quite fresh from what
+we've ever done before."
+
+And the Outlaws were thinking.
+
+They had engaged in mortal combat with one another, they had cooked
+strange ingredients over a smoking and reluctant flame with a fine
+disregard of culinary conventions, they had tracked each other over the
+country-side with gait and complexions intended to represent those of
+the aborigines of South America, they had even turned their attention to
+kidnapping (without any striking success), and these occupations had
+palled.
+
+In all its activities the Society of Outlaws (comprising four members)
+aimed at a simple, unostentatious mode of procedure. In their shrinking
+from the glare of publicity they showed an example of unaffected modesty
+that many other public societies might profitably emulate. The parents
+of the members were unaware of the very existence of the society. The
+ill-timed and tactless interference of parents had nipped in the bud
+many a cherished plan, and by bitter experience the Outlaws had learnt
+that secrecy was their only protection. Owing to the rules and
+restrictions of an unsympathetic world that orders school hours from 9
+to 4 their meetings were confined to half-holidays and occasionally
+Sunday afternoons.
+
+William, the ever ingenious, made the first suggestion.
+
+"Let's shoot things with bows an' arrows same as real outlaws used to,"
+he said.
+
+"What things?" and
+
+"What bows an' arrows?" said Henry and Ginger simultaneously.
+
+"Oh, anything--birds an' cats an' hens an' things--an' buy bows an'
+arrows. You can buy them in shops."
+
+"We can make them," said Douglas, hopefully.
+
+"Not like you can get them in shops. They'd shoot crooked or sumthin' if
+we made them. They've got to be jus' so to shoot straight. I saw some in
+Brook's window, too, jus' right--jus' same as real outlaws had."
+
+"How much?" said the outlaws breathlessly.
+
+"Five shillings--targets for learnin' on before we begin shootin' real
+things an' all."
+
+"Five shillings!" breathed Douglas. He might as well have said five
+pounds. "We've not got five shillings. Henry's not having any money
+since he broke their drawing-room window an' Ginger only has 3_d._ a
+week an' has to give collection an' we've not paid for the guinea pig
+yet, the one that got into Ginger's sister's hat an' she was so mad at,
+an'----"
+
+"Oh, never mind all that," said William, scornfully. "We'll jus' get
+five shillings."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well," uncertainly, "grown-ups can always get money when they want it."
+
+"How?" again.
+
+William disliked being tied down to details.
+
+"Oh--bazaars an' things," impatiently.
+
+"Bazaars!" exploded Henry. "Who'd come to a bazaar if we had one? Who
+would? Jus' tell me that if you're so clever! Who'd come to it? Besides,
+you've got to sell things at a bazaar, haven't you? What'd we sell?
+We've got nothin' to sell, have we? What's the good of havin' a bazaar
+with nothin' to sell and no one to buy it? Jus' tell me that!"
+
+Henry always enjoyed scoring off William.
+
+"Well--shows an' things," said William desperately.
+
+There was a moment's silence, then Ginger repeated thoughtfully.
+"Shows!" and Douglas, whose eldest brother was home from college for his
+vacation, murmured self-consciously, "By Jove!"
+
+"We _could_ do a show," said Ginger. "Get animals an' things an' charge
+money for lookin' at them."
+
+"Who'd pay it?" said Henry, the doubter.
+
+"Anyone would. You'd pay to see animals, wouldn't you?--real animals.
+People do at the Zoo, don't they? Well, we'll get some animals. That's
+easy enough, isn't it?"
+
+A neighbouring church clock struck four and the meeting was adjourned.
+
+"Well, we'll have a show an' get money and buy bows an' arrows an' shoot
+things," summed up William, "an we'll arrange the show next week."
+
+William returned home slowly and thoughtfully. He sat on his bed, his
+hands in his pockets, his brow drawn into a frown, his thoughts
+wandering in a dreamland of wonderful "shows" and rare exotic beasts.
+
+Suddenly from the next room came a thin sound that gathered volume till
+it seemed to fill the house like the roaring of a lion, then died
+gradually away and was followed by silence. But only for a second. It
+began again--a small whisper that grew louder and louder, became a
+raucous bellow, then faded slowly away to rise again after a moment's
+silence. In the next room William's mother's Aunt Emily was taking her
+afternoon nap. Aunt Emily had come down a month ago for a week's visit
+and had not yet referred to the date of her departure. William's father
+was growing anxious. She was a stout, healthy lady, who spent all her
+time recovering from a slight illness she had had two years ago. Her
+life held two occupations, and only two. These were eating and sleeping.
+For William she possessed a subtle but irresistible fascination. Her
+stature, her appetite, her gloom, added to the fact that she utterly
+ignored him, attracted him strongly.
+
+The tea bell rang and the sound of the snoring ceased abruptly. This
+entertainment over, William descended to the dining-room, where his
+father was addressing his mother with some heat.
+
+"Is she going to stay here for ever, or only for a few years? I'd like
+to know, because----"
+
+Perceiving William, he stopped abruptly, and William's mother murmured:
+
+"It's so nice to have her, dear."
+
+Then Aunt Emily entered.
+
+"Have you slept well, Aunt?"
+
+"Slept!" repeated Aunt Emily majestically. "I hardly expect to sleep in
+my state of health. A little rest is all I can expect."
+
+"Sorry you're no better," said William's father sardonically.
+
+"_Better?_" she repeated again indignantly. "It will be a long time
+before I'm better."
+
+She lowered her large, healthy frame into a chair, carefully selected a
+substantial piece of bread and butter and attacked it with vigour.
+
+"I'm going to the post after tea," said William's mother. "Would you
+care to come with me?"
+
+Aunt Emily took a large helping of jam.
+
+"You hardly expect me to go out in the evening in my state of health,
+surely? It's years since I went out after tea. And I was at the post
+office this morning. There were a lot of people there, but they served
+me first. I suppose they saw I looked ill."
+
+William's father choked suddenly and apologised, but not humbly.
+
+"Though I must say," went on Aunt Emily, "this place does suit me. I
+think after a few months here I should be a little stronger. Pass the
+jam, William."
+
+The glance that William's father fixed upon her would have made a
+stronger woman quail, but Aunt Emily was scraping out the last remnants
+of jam and did not notice.
+
+"I'm a bit over-tired to-day, I think," she went on. "I'm so apt to
+forget how weak I am and then I overdo it. I'm ready for the cake,
+William. I just sat out in the sun yesterday afternoon and sat a bit too
+long and over-tired myself. I ought to write letters after tea, but I
+don't think I have the strength. Another piece of cake, William. I'll go
+upstairs to rest instead, I think. I hope you'll keep the house quiet.
+It's so rarely that I can get a bit of sleep."
+
+William's father left the room abruptly. William sat on and watched,
+with fascinated eyes, the cake disappear, and finally followed the
+large, portly figure upstairs and sat down in his room to plan the
+"show" and incidentally listen, with a certain thrilled awe, for the
+sounds from next door.
+
+The place and time of the "show" presented no little difficulty. To hold
+it in the old barn would give away to the world the cherished secret of
+their meeting place. It was William who suggested his bedroom, to be
+entered, not by way of the front door and staircase, but by the less
+public way of the garden wall and scullery roof. Ever an optimist, he
+affirmed that no one would see or hear. The choice of a time was limited
+to Wednesday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday. Sunday at first
+was ruled out as impossible. But there were difficulties about Wednesday
+afternoon and Saturday afternoon. On Wednesday afternoon Ginger and
+Douglas were unwilling and ungraceful pupils at a dancing class. On
+Saturday afternoon William's father gardened and would command a view of
+the garden wall and scullery roof. On these afternoons also Cook and
+Emma, both of a suspicious turn of mind, would be at large. On Sunday
+Cook and Emma went out, William's mother paid a regular weekly visit to
+an old friend and William's father spent the afternoon on the sofa, dead
+to the world.
+
+Moreover, as he pointed out to the Outlaws, the members of the Sunday
+School could be waylaid and induced to attend the show and they would
+probably be provided with money for collection. The more William thought
+over it, the more attractive became the idea of a Sunday afternoon in
+spite of superficial difficulties; therefore Sunday afternoon was
+finally chosen.
+
+The day was fortunately a fine one, and William and the other Outlaws
+were at work early. William had asked his mother, with an expression of
+meekness and virtue that ought to have warned her of danger, if he might
+have "jus' a few friends" in his room for the afternoon. His mother,
+glad that her husband should be spared his son's restless company, gave
+willing permission.
+
+By half-past two the exhibits were ready. In a cage by the window sat a
+white rat painted in faint alternate stripes of blue and pink. This was
+Douglas' contribution, handpainted by himself in water colours. It wore
+a bewildered expression and occasionally licked its stripes and then
+obviously wished it hadn't. Its cage bore a notice printed on cardboard:
+
+    +-------------------+
+    |  RAT FROM CHINA   |
+    | RATS ARE ALL LIKE |
+    |   THIS IN CHINA   |
+    +-------------------+
+
+Next came a cat belonging to William's sister, Smuts by name, now
+imprisoned beneath a basket-chair. At the best of times Smuts was
+short-tempered, and all its life had cherished a bitter hatred of
+William. Now, enclosed by its enemy in a prison two feet square, its
+fury knew no bounds. It tore at the basket work, it flew wildly round
+and round, scratching, spitting, swearing. Its chair bore the simple and
+appropriate notice:
+
+    +----------+
+    | WILD CAT |
+    +----------+
+
+William watched it with honest pride and prayed fervently that its
+indignation would not abate during the afternoon.
+
+Next came a giant composed of Douglas upon Ginger's back, draped in two
+sheets tied tightly round Douglas's neck. This was labelled:
+
+    +--------------+
+    | GENWIN GIANT |
+    +--------------+
+
+Ginger was already growing restive. His muffled voice was heard from the
+folds of the sheets informing the other Outlaws that it was a bit thick
+and he hadn't known it would be like this or he wouldn't have done it,
+and anyway he was going to change with Douglas half time or he'd chuck
+up the whole thing.
+
+The next exhibit was a black fox fur of William's mother's, to which was
+fortunately attached a head and several feet, and which he had
+surreptitiously removed from her wardrobe. This had been tied up,
+stuffed with waste paper and wired by William till it was, in his eyes,
+remarkably lifelike. As the legs, even with the assistance of wire,
+refused to support the body and the head would only droop sadly to the
+ground, it was perforce exhibited in a recumbent attitude. It bore marks
+of sticky fingers, and of several side slips of the scissors when
+William was cutting the wire, but on the whole he was justly proud of
+it. It bore the striking but untruthful legend:--
+
+    +------------+
+    |  BEAR SHOT |
+    | BY OUTLAWS |
+    |  IN RUSHER |
+    +------------+
+
+Next came:
+
+    +------------+
+    |  BLUE DOG  |
+    +------------+
+
+This was Henry's fox terrier, generally known as Chips. For Chips the
+world was very black. Henry's master mind had scorned his paint box and
+his water colours. Henry had "borrowed" a blue bag and dabbed it
+liberally over Chips. Chips had, after the first wild frenzied struggle,
+offered no resistance. He now sat, a picture of black despair, turning
+every now and then a melancholy eye upon the still enraged Smuts. But
+for him cats and joy and life and fighting were no more. He was abject,
+shamed--a blue dog.
+
+William himself, as showman, was an imposing figure. He was robed in a
+red dressing-gown of his father's that trailed on the ground behind him
+and over whose cords in front he stumbled ungracefully as he walked. He
+had cut a few strands from the fringe of a rug and glued them to his
+lips to represent moustaches. They fell in two straight lines over his
+mouth. On his head was a tinsel crown, once worn by his sister as Fairy
+Queen.
+
+The show had been widely advertised and all the neighbouring children
+had been individually canvassed, but under strict orders of secrecy. The
+threats of what the Outlaws would do if their secret were disclosed had
+kept many a child awake at night.
+
+William surveyed the room proudly.
+
+"Not a bad show for a penny, I _should_ say. I guess there aren't many
+like it, anyway. Do shut up talkin', Ginger. It'll spoil it all, if
+folks hear the giant talking out of his stomach. It's Douglas that's got
+to do the giant's _talking_. Anyone could see that. I say, they're
+comin'! Look! They're comin'! Along the wall!"
+
+There was a thin line of children climbing along the wall in single file
+on all fours. They ascended the scullery roof and approached the window.
+These were the first arrivals who had called on their way to Sunday
+School.
+
+Henry took their pennies and William cleared his throat and began:--
+
+"White rat from China, ladies an' gentlemen, pink an' blue striped. All
+rats is pink an' blue striped in China. This is the only genwin China
+rat in England--brought over from China special las' week jus' for the
+show. It lives on China bread an' butter brought over special, too."
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM WAS AN IMPOSING FIGURE.]
+
+"Wash it!" jeered an unbeliever. "Jus' wash it an' let's see it then."
+
+"Wash it?" repeated the showman indignantly. "It's gotter be washed.
+It's washed every morning an' night same as you or me. China rats have
+gotter be washed or they'd die right off. Washin' 'em don't make no
+difference to their stripes. Anyone knows that that knows anything about
+China rats, I guess."
+
+He laughed scornfully and turned to Smuts. Smuts had grown used to the
+basket chair and was settling down for a nap. William crouched down on
+all fours, ran his fingers along the basket-work, and, putting his face
+close to it, gave vent to a malicious howl. Smuts sprang at him,
+scratching and spitting.
+
+"Wild cat," said William triumphantly. "Look at it! Kill anyone if it
+got out! Spring at their throats, it would, an' scratch their eyes out
+with its paws an' bite their necks till its teeth met. If I jus' moved
+away that chair it would spring out at you." They moved hastily away
+from the chair, "and I bet some of you would be dead pretty quick. It
+could have anyone's head right off with bitin' and scratchin'. Right
+off--separate from their bodies!"
+
+There was an awe-stricken silence.
+
+Then:
+
+"Garn! It's Smuts. It's your sister's cat!"
+
+William laughed as though vastly amused by this idea.
+
+"Smuts!" he said, giving a surreptitious kick to the chair that
+infuriated its occupant still more. "I guess there wouldn't be many of
+us left in this house if Smuts was like this."
+
+They passed on to the giant.
+
+"A giant," said William, re-arranging the tinsel crown, which was
+slightly too big for him. "Real giant. Look at it. As big as two of you
+put together. How d'you think he gets in at doors and things? Has to
+have everything made special. Look at him walk. Walk, Ginger."
+
+Ginger took two steps forward. Douglas clutched his shoulders and
+murmured anxiously, "By Jove!"
+
+"Go on," urged William scornfully, "That's not walkin'."
+
+The goaded Ginger's voice came from the giant's middle regions!
+
+"If you go on talkin' at me, I'll drop him. I'm just about sick of it."
+
+"All right," said William hastily.
+
+"Anyway it's a giant," he went on to his audience. "A jolly fine giant."
+
+"It's got Douglas's face," said one of his audience.
+
+William was for a moment at a loss.
+
+"Well," he said at last, "giant's got to have some sort of a face,
+hasn't it? Can't not have a face, can it?"
+
+The Russian Bear, which had often been seen adorning the shoulders of
+William's mother and was promptly recognised, was greeted with ribald
+jeers, but there was no doubt as to the success of the Blue Dog. Chips
+advanced deprecatingly, blue head drooping, and blue tail between blue
+legs, making abject apologies for his horrible condition. But Henry
+had done his work well. They stood around in rapt admiration.
+
+[Illustration: THE GOADED GINGER'S VOICE CAME FROM THE GIANT'S MIDDLE
+REGIONS.]
+
+"Blue dog," said the showman, walking forward proudly and stumbling
+violently over the cords of the dressing gown. "Blue dog," he repeated,
+recovering his balance and removing the tinsel crown from his nose to
+his brow. "You never saw a blue dog before, did you? No, and you aren't
+likely to see one again, neither. It was made blue special for this
+show. It's the only blue dog in the world. Folks'll be comin' from all
+over the world to see this blue dog--an' thrown in in a penny show! If
+it was in the Zoo you'd have to pay a shilling to see it, I bet.
+It's--it's jus' luck for you it's here. I guess the folks at the Zoo
+wish they'd got it. Tain't many shows have blue dogs. Brown an' black
+an' white--but not blue. Why, folks pay money jus' to see shows of
+ornery dogs--so you're jus' lucky to see a blue dog _an'_ a dead bear
+from Russia _an'_ a giant, _an'_ a wild cat, _an'_ a China rat for jus'
+one penny."
+
+After each speech William had to remove from his mouth the rug fringe
+which persisted in obeying the force of gravity rather than William's
+idea of what a moustache should be.
+
+"It's jus' paint. Henry's gate's being painted blue," said one critic
+feebly, but on the whole the Outlaws had scored a distinct success in
+the blue dog.
+
+Then, while they stood in silent admiration round the unhappy animal,
+came a sound from the next door, a gentle sound like the sighing of the
+wind through the trees. It rose and fell. It rose again and fell again.
+It increased in volume with each repetition, till at its height it
+sounded like a wild animal in pain.
+
+"What's that?" asked the audience breathlessly.
+
+William was slightly uneasy. He was not sure whether this fresh
+development would add lustre or dishonour to his show.
+
+"Yes," he said darkly to gain time, "what is it? I guess you'd like to
+know what it is!"
+
+"Garn! It's jus' snorin'."
+
+"Snorin'!" repeated William. "It's not ornery snorin', that isn't. Jus'
+listen, that's all! You couldn't snore like that, I bet. Huh!"
+
+They listened spellbound to the gentle sound, growing louder and louder
+till at its loudest it brought rapt smiles to their faces, then ceasing
+abruptly, then silence. Then again the gentle sound that grew and grew.
+
+William asked Henry in a stage whisper if they oughtn't to charge extra
+for listening to it. The audience hastily explained that they weren't
+listening, they "jus' couldn't help hearin'."
+
+A second batch of sightseers had arrived and were paying their entrance
+pennies, but the first batch refused to move. William, emboldened by
+success, opened the door and they crept out to the landing and listened
+with ears pressed to the magic door.
+
+Henry now did the honours of showman. William stood, majestic in his
+glorious apparel, deep in thought. Then to his face came the faint smile
+that inspiration brings to her votaries. He ordered the audience back
+into the showroom and shut the door. Then he took off his shoes and
+softly and with bated breath opened Aunt Emily's door and peeped
+within. It was rather a close afternoon, and she lay on her bed on the
+top of her eiderdown. She had slipped off her dress skirt so as not to
+crush it, and she lay in her immense stature in a blouse and striped
+petticoat, while from her open mouth issued the fascinating sounds. In
+sleep Aunt Emily was not beautiful.
+
+William thoughtfully propped up a cushion in the doorway and stood
+considering the situation.
+
+In a few minutes the showroom was filled with a silent, expectant crowd.
+In a corner near the door was a new notice:
+
+    +----------------------+
+    |   PLACE FOR TAKING   |
+    | OFF SHOES AND TAKING |
+    |    OTH OF SILENCE    |
+    +----------------------+
+
+William, after administering the oath of silence to a select party in
+his most impressive manner led them shoeless and on tiptoe to the next
+room.
+
+From Aunt Emily's bed hung another notice:
+
+    +------------------+
+    |  FAT WILD WOMAN  |
+    |   TORKIN NATIF   |
+    |    LANGWIDGE     |
+    +------------------+
+
+They stood in a hushed, delighted group around her bed. The sounds never
+ceased, never abated. William only allowed them two minutes in the room.
+They came out reluctantly, paid more money, joined the end of the queue
+and re-entered. More and more children came to see the show, but the
+show now consisted solely in Aunt Emily.
+
+The China rat had licked off all its stripes; Smuts was fast asleep;
+Ginger was sitting down on the seat of a chair and Douglas on the back
+of it, and Ginger had insisted at last on air and sight and had put his
+head out where the two sheets joined; the Russian Bear had fallen on to
+the floor and no one had picked it up; Chips lay in a disconsolate heap,
+a victim of acute melancholia--and no one cared for any of these things.
+New-comers passed by them hurriedly and stood shoeless in the queue
+outside Aunt Emily's room eagerly awaiting their turn. Those who came
+out simply went to the end again to wait another turn. Many returned
+home for more money, for Aunt Emily was 1d. extra and each visit after
+the first, 1/2d. The Sunday School bell pealed forth its summons, but no
+one left the show. The vicar was depressed that evening. The attendance
+at Sunday School had been the worst on record. And still Aunt Emily
+slept and snored with a rapt, silent crowd around her. But William could
+never rest content. He possessed ambition that would have put many of
+his elders to shame. He cleared the room and re-opened it after a few
+minutes, during which his clients waited in breathless suspense.
+
+When they re-entered there was a fresh exhibit. William's keen eye had
+been searching out each detail of the room. On the table by her bed now
+stood a glass containing teeth, that William had discovered on the
+washstand, and a switch of hair and a toothless comb, that William had
+discovered on the dressing-table. These all bore notices:
+
+    +----------+   +----------+   +----------+
+    | FAT WILD |   | FAT WILD |   | FAT WILD |
+    |  WOMAN'S |   |  WOMAN'S |   |  WOMAN'S |
+    |  TEETH   |   |   HARE   |   |   KOME   |
+    +----------+   +----------+   +----------+
+
+Were it not that the slightest noise meant instant expulsion from the
+show (some of their number had already suffered that bitter fate) there
+would have been no restraining the audience. As it was, they crept in,
+silent, expectant, thrilled, to watch and listen for the blissful two
+minutes. And Aunt Emily never failed them. Still she slept and snored.
+They borrowed money recklessly from each other. The poor sold their
+dearest treasures to the rich, and still they came again and again. And
+still Aunt Emily slept and snored. It would be interesting to know how
+long this would have gone on, had she not, on the top note of a peal
+that was a pure delight to her audience, awakened with a start and
+glanced around her. At first she thought that the cluster of small boys
+around her was a dream, especially as they turned and fled precipitately
+at once. Then she sat up and her eye fell upon the table by her bed, the
+notices, and finally upon the petrified horror-stricken showman. She
+sprang up and, seizing him by the shoulders, shook him till his teeth
+chattered, the tinsel crown fell down, encircling ears and nose, and one
+of his moustaches fell limply at his feet.
+
+"You wicked boy!" she said as she shook him, "you _wicked_, _wicked_,
+_wicked_ boy!"
+
+He escaped from her grasp and fled to the showroom, where, in sheer
+self-defence, he moved a table and three chairs across the door. The
+room was empty except for Henry, the blue dog, and the still sleeping
+Smuts. All that was left of the giant was the crumpled sheets. Douglas
+had, with an awe-stricken "By Jove!" snatched up his rat as he fled. The
+last of their clients was seen scrambling along the top of the garden
+wall on all fours with all possible speed.
+
+Mechanically William straightened his crown.
+
+"She's woke," he said. "She's mad wild."
+
+He listened apprehensively for angry footsteps descending the stairs and
+his father's dread summons, but none came. Aunt Emily could be heard
+moving about in her room, but that was all. A wild hope came to him
+that, given a little time, she might forget the incident.
+
+"Let's count the money--" said Henry at last.
+
+They counted.
+
+"Four an' six!" screamed William. "Four an' six! Jolly good, I _should_
+say! An' it would only have been about two shillings without Aunt Emily,
+an' I thought of her, didn't I? I guess you can all be jolly grateful to
+me."
+
+"All right," said Henry unkindly. "I'm not envying you, am I? You're
+welcome to it when she tells your father."
+
+And William's proud spirits dropped.
+
+Then came the opening of the fateful door and heavy steps descending the
+stairs.
+
+William's mother had returned from her weekly visit to her friend. She
+was placing her umbrella in the stand as Aunt Emily, hatted and coated
+and carrying a bag, descended. William's father had just awakened from
+his peaceful Sunday afternoon slumber, and, hearing his wife, had come
+into the hall.
+
+Aunt Emily fixed her eye upon him.
+
+"Will you be good enough to procure a conveyance?" she said. "After the
+indignities to which I have been subjected in this house I refuse to
+remain in it a moment longer."
+
+Quivering with indignation she gave details of the indignities to which
+she had been subjected. William's mother pleaded, apologised, coaxed.
+William's father went quietly out to procure a conveyance. When he
+returned she was still talking in the hall.
+
+"A crowd of vulgar little boys," she was saying, "and horrible indecent
+placards all over the room."
+
+He carried her bag down to the cab.
+
+"And me in my state of health," she said as she followed him. From the
+cab she gave her parting shot.
+
+"And if this horrible thing hadn't happened, I might have stayed with
+you all the winter and perhaps part of the spring."
+
+William's father wiped his brow with his handkerchief as the cab drove
+off.
+
+"How dreadful!" said his wife, but she avoided meeting his eye.
+"It's--it's _disgraceful_ of William," she went on with sudden spirit.
+"You must speak to him."
+
+"I will," said his father determinedly. "William!" he shouted sternly
+from the hall.
+
+William's heart sank.
+
+"She's told," he murmured, his last hope gone.
+
+"You'd better go and get it over," advised Henry.
+
+"William!" repeated the voice still more fiercely.
+
+Henry moved nearer the window, prepared for instant flight if the
+voice's owner should follow it up the stairs.
+
+"Go on," he urged. "He'll only come up for you."
+
+William slowly removed the barricade and descended the stairs. He had
+remembered to take off the crown and dressing gown, but his one-sided
+moustache still hung limply over his mouth.
+
+His father was standing in the hall.
+
+"What's that horrible thing on your face?" he began.
+
+"Whiskers," answered William laconically.
+
+His father accepted the explanation.
+
+"Is it true," he went on, "that you actually took your friends into your
+aunt's room without permission and hung vulgar placards around it?"
+
+William glanced up into his father's face and suddenly took hope. Mr.
+Brown was no actor.
+
+"Yes," he admitted.
+
+"It's disgraceful," said Mr. Brown, "_disgraceful_! That's all."
+
+But it was not quite all. Something hard and round slipped into
+William's hand. He ran lightly upstairs.
+
+"Hello!" said Henry, surprised. "That's not taken long. What----"
+
+William opened his hand and showed something that shone upon his
+extended palm.
+
+"Look!" he said. "Crumbs! Look!" It was a bright half-crown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A QUESTION OF GRAMMAR
+
+
+It was raining. It had been raining all morning. William was intensely
+bored with his family.
+
+"What can I do?" he demanded of his father for the tenth time.
+
+"_Nothing!_" said his father fiercely from behind his newspaper.
+
+William followed his mother into the kitchen.
+
+"What can I do?" he said plaintively.
+
+"Couldn't you just sit quietly?" suggested his mother.
+
+"That's not _doin'_ anything," William said. "I _could_ sit quietly all
+day," he went on aggressively, "if I wanted."
+
+"But you never do."
+
+"No, 'cause there wouldn't be any _sense_ in it, would there?"
+
+"Couldn't you read or draw or something?"
+
+"No, that's lessons. That's not doin' anything!"
+
+"I could teach you to knit if you like."
+
+With one crushing glance William left her.
+
+He went to the drawing-room, where his sister Ethel was knitting a
+jumper and talking to a friend.
+
+"And I heard her say to him----" she was saying. She broke off with the
+sigh of a patient martyr as William came in. He sat down and glared at
+her. She exchanged a glance of resigned exasperation with her friend.
+
+"What are you doing, William?" said the friend sweetly.
+
+"Nothin'," said William with a scowl.
+
+"Shut the door after you when you go out, won't you, William?" said
+Ethel equally sweetly.
+
+William at that insult rose with dignity and went to the door. At the
+door he turned.
+
+"I wun't stay here now," he said with slow contempt, "not even if--even
+if--even if," he paused to consider the most remote contingency, "not
+even if you wanted me," he said at last emphatically.
+
+He shut the door behind him and his expression relaxed into a sardonic
+smile.
+
+"I bet they feel _small_!" he said to the umbrella-stand.
+
+He went to the library, where his seventeen-year-old brother Robert was
+showing off his new rifle to a friend.
+
+"You see----" he was saying, then, catching sight of William's face
+round the door, "Oh, get out!"
+
+William got out.
+
+He returned to his mother in the kitchen with a still more jaundiced
+view of life. It was still raining. His mother was looking at the
+tradesmen's books.
+
+"Can I go out?" he said gloomily.
+
+"No, of course not. It's pouring."
+
+"I don't mind rain."
+
+"Don't be silly."
+
+William considered that few boys in the whole world were handicapped by
+more unsympathetic parents than he.
+
+"Why," he said pathetically, "have they got friends in an' me not?"
+
+"I suppose you didn't think of asking anyone," she said calmly.
+
+"Well, can I have someone now?"
+
+"No, it's too late," said Mrs. Brown, raising her head from the
+butcher's book and murmuring "ten and elevenpence" to herself.
+
+"Well, when can I?"
+
+She raised a harassed face.
+
+"William, do be quiet! Any time, if you ask. Eighteen and twopence."
+
+"Can I have lots?"
+
+"Oh, go and ask your father."
+
+William went out.
+
+He returned to the dining-room, where his father was still reading a
+paper. The sigh with which his father greeted his entrance was not one
+of relief.
+
+"If you've come to ask questions----" he began threateningly.
+
+"I haven't," said William quickly. "Father, when you're all away on
+Saturday, can I have a party?"
+
+"No, of course not," said his father irritably. "Can't you _do_
+something?"
+
+William, goaded to desperation, burst into a flood of eloquence.
+
+[Illustration: "THE SORT OF THINGS I WANT TO DO THEY DON'T WANT ME TO
+DO, AN' THE SORT OF THINGS I DON'T WANT TO DO THEY WANT ME TO DO."
+WILLIAM'S SCORN AND FURY WAS INDESCRIBABLE.]
+
+"The sort of things I want to do they don't want me to do an' the sort
+of things I don't want to do they want me to do. Mother said to knit.
+_Knit!_"
+
+His scorn and fury were indescribable. His father looked out of the
+window.
+
+"Thank Heaven, it's stopped raining! Go out!"
+
+William went out.
+
+There were some quite interesting things to do outside. In the road
+there were puddles, and the sensation of walking through a puddle, as
+every boy knows, is a very pleasant one. The hedges, when shaken, sent
+quite a shower bath upon the shaker, which also is a pleasant sensation.
+The ditch was full and there was the thrill of seeing how often one
+could jump across it without going in. One went in more often than not.
+It is also fascinating to walk in mud, scraping it along with one's
+boots. William's spirits rose, but he could not shake off the idea of
+the party. Quite suddenly he wanted to have a party and he wanted to
+have it on Saturday. His family would be away on Saturday. They were
+going to spend the day with an aunt. Aunts rarely included William in
+their invitation.
+
+He came home wet and dirty and cheerful. He approached his father
+warily.
+
+"Did you say I could have a party, father?" he said casually.
+
+"_No_, I did _not_," said Mr. Brown firmly.
+
+William let the matter rest for the present.
+
+He spent most of the English Grammar class in school next morning
+considering it. There was a great deal to be said for a party in the
+absence of one's parents and grown-up brother and sister. He'd like to
+ask George and Ginger and Henry and Douglas and--and--and--heaps of
+them. He'd like to ask them all. "They" were the whole class--thirty in
+number.
+
+"What have I just been saying, William?"
+
+William sighed. That was the foolish sort of question that
+schoolmistresses were always asking. They ought to know themselves what
+they'd just been saying better than anyone. _He_ never knew. Why were
+they always asking him? He looked blank. Then:
+
+"Was it anythin' about participles?" He remembered something vaguely
+about participles, but it mightn't have been to-day.
+
+Miss Jones groaned.
+
+"That was ever so long ago, William," she said. "You've not been
+attending."
+
+William cleared his throat with a certain dignity and made no answer.
+
+"Tell him, Henry."
+
+Henry ceased his enthralling occupation of trying to push a fly into his
+ink-well with his nib and answered mechanically:
+
+"Two negatives make an affirmative."
+
+"Yes. Say that, William."
+
+William repeated it without betraying any great interest in the fact.
+
+"Yes. What's a negative, William?"
+
+William sighed.
+
+"Somethin' about photographs?" he said obligingly.
+
+"_No_," snapped Miss Jones. She found William and the heat (William
+particularly) rather trying.
+
+"It's 'no' and 'not.' And an affirmative is 'yes.'"
+
+"Oh," said William politely.
+
+"So two 'nos' and 'nots' mean 'yes,' if they're in the same sentence. If
+you said 'There's not no money in the box' you mean there is."
+
+William considered.
+
+He said "Oh" again.
+
+Then he seemed suddenly to become intelligent.
+
+"Then," he said, "if you say 'no' and 'not' in the same sentence does it
+mean 'yes'?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+William smiled.
+
+William's smile was a rare thing.
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+Miss Jones was quite touched. "It's all right, William," she said, "I'm
+glad you're beginning to take an interest in your work."
+
+William was murmuring to himself.
+
+"'No, of course _not_' and 'No, I did not' and a 'no' an' a 'not' mean a
+'yes,' so he meant 'yes, of course' and 'yes, I did.'"
+
+He waited till the Friday before he gave his invitations with a casual
+air.
+
+"My folks is goin' away to-morrow an' they said I could have a few
+fren's in to tea. Can you come? Tell your mother they said jus' to come
+an' not bother to write."
+
+He was a born strategist. Not one of his friends' parents guessed the
+true state of affairs. When William's conscience (that curious organ)
+rose to reproach him, he said to it firmly:
+
+"He _said_ I could. He said '_Yes_, of course.' He said '_Yes_, I
+did.'"
+
+He asked them _all_. He thought that while you are having a party you
+might as well have a big one. He hinted darkly at unrestrained joy and
+mirth. They all accepted the invitation.
+
+William's mother took an anxious farewell of him on Saturday morning.
+
+"You don't mind being left, darling, do you?"
+
+"No, mother," said William with perfect truth.
+
+"You won't do anything we've told you not to, will you?"
+
+"No, mother. Only things you've said 'yes' to."
+
+Cook and Jane had long looked forward to this day. There would be very
+little to do in the house and as far as William was concerned they hoped
+for the best.
+
+William was out all the morning. At lunch he was ominously quiet and
+polite. Jane decided to go with her young man to the pictures.
+
+Cook said she didn't mind being left, as "that Master William" had gone
+out and there seemed to be no prospect of his return before tea-time.
+
+So Jane went to the pictures.
+
+About three o'clock the postman came and cook went to the door for the
+letters. Then she stood gazing down the road as though transfixed.
+
+William had collected his guests en route. He was bringing them joyfully
+home with him. Clean and starched and prim had they issued from their
+homes, but they had grown hilarious under William's benign influence.
+They had acquired sticks and stones and old tins from the ditches as
+they came along. They perceived from William's general attitude towards
+it that it was no ordinary party. They were a happy crowd. William
+headed them with a trumpet.
+
+They trooped in at the garden gate. Cook, pale and speechless, watched
+them. Then her speechlessness departed.
+
+"You're not coming in here!" she said fiercely. "What've you brought all
+those boys cluttering up the garden?"
+
+"They've come to tea," said William calmly.
+
+She grew paler still.
+
+"That they've _not_!" she said fiercely. "What your father'd say----"
+
+"He _said_ they could come," said William. "I asked him an' he said
+'Yes, of course,' an' I asked if he'd said so an' he said 'Yes, I did.'
+That's what he said 'cause of English Grammar an' wot Miss Jones said."
+
+Cook's answer was to slam the door in his face and lock it. The thirty
+guests were slightly disconcerted, but not for long.
+
+"Come on!" shouted William excitedly. "She's the enemy. Let's storm her
+ole castle."
+
+The guests' spirits rose. This promised to be infinitely superior to the
+usual party.
+
+They swarmed round to the back of the house. The enemy had bolted the
+back door and was fastening all the windows. Purple with fury she shook
+her fist at William through the drawing-room window. William brandished
+his piece of stick and blew his trumpet in defiant reply. The army had
+armed itself with every kind of weapon, including the raspberry-canes
+whose careful placing was the result of a whole day's work of William's
+father. William decided to climb up to the balcony outside Ethel's
+open bedroom window with the help of his noble band. The air was full of
+their defiant war-whoops. They filled the front garden, trampling on all
+the rose beds, cheering William as he swarmed up to the balcony, his
+trumpet between his lips. The enemy appeared at the window and shut it
+with a bang, and William, startled, dropped down among his followers.
+They raised a hoarse roar of anger.
+
+[Illustration: THEY TROOPED IN AT THE GARDEN GATE. COOK, PALE AND
+SPEECHLESS, WATCHED THEM.]
+
+"Mean ole cat!" shouted the enraged general.
+
+The blood of the army was up. No army of thirty strong worthy of its
+name could ever consent to be worsted by an enemy of one. All the doors
+and windows were bolted. There was only one thing to be done. And this
+the general did, encouraged by loyal cheers from his army. "Go it, ole
+William! Yah! He--oo--o!"
+
+The stone with which William broke the drawing-room window fell upon a
+small occasional table, scattering Mrs. Brown's cherished silver far and
+wide.
+
+William, with the born general's contempt for the minor devastations of
+war, enlarged the hole and helped his gallant band through with only a
+limited number of cuts and scratches. They were drunk with the thrill of
+battle. They left the garden with its wreck of rose trees and its
+trampled lawn and crowded through the broken window with imminent danger
+to life and limb. The enemy was shutting the small window of the
+coal-cellar, and there William imprisoned her, turning the key with a
+loud yell of triumph.
+
+The party then proceeded.
+
+It fulfilled the expectations of the guests that it was to be a party
+unlike any other party. At other parties they played "Hide and
+Seek"--with smiling but firm mothers and aunts and sisters stationed at
+intervals with damping effects upon one's spirits, with "not in the
+bedrooms, dear," and "mind the umbrella stand," and "certainly not in
+the drawing-room," and "don't shout so loud, darling." But this was Hide
+and Seek from the realms of perfection. Up the stairs and down the
+stairs, in all the bedrooms, sliding down the balusters, in and out of
+the drawing-room, leaving trails of muddy boots and shattered ornaments
+as they went!
+
+Ginger found a splendid hiding-place in Robert's bed, where his boots
+left a perfect impression of their muddy soles in several places. Henry
+found another in Ethel's wardrobe, crouching upon her satin evening
+shoes among her evening dresses. George banged the drawing-room door
+with such violence that the handle came off in his hand. Douglas became
+entangled in the dining-room curtain, which yielded to his struggles and
+descended upon him and an old china bowl upon the sideboard. It was such
+a party as none of them had dreamed of; it was bliss undiluted. The
+house was full of shouting and yelling, of running to and fro of small
+boys mingled with subterranean murmurs of cook's rage. Cook was uttering
+horrible imprecations and hurling lumps of coal at the door. She was
+Irish and longed to return to the fray.
+
+It was William who discovered first that it was tea-time and there was
+no tea. At first he felt slightly aggrieved. Then he thought of the
+larder and his spirits rose.
+
+"Come on!" he called. "All jus' get what you can."
+
+They trooped in, panting, shouting, laughing, and all just got what they
+could.
+
+Ginger seized the remnants of a cold ham and picked the bone, George
+with great gusto drank a whole jar of cream, William and Douglas between
+them ate a gooseberry pie, Henry ate a whole currant cake. Each foraged
+for himself. They ate two bowls of cold vegetables, a joint of cold
+beef, two pots of honey, three dozen oranges, three loaves and two pots
+of dripping. They experimented upon lard, onions, and raw sausages. They
+left the larder a place of gaping emptiness. Meanwhile cook's voice,
+growing hoarser and hoarser as the result of the inhalation of coal dust
+and exhalation of imprecations, still arose from the depths and still
+the door of the coal-cellar shook and rattled.
+
+Then one of the guests who had been in the drawing-room window came
+back.
+
+"She's coming home!" he shouted excitedly.
+
+They flocked to the window.
+
+Jane was bidding a fond farewell to her young man at the side gate.
+
+"Don't let her come in!" yelled William. "Come on!"
+
+With a smile of blissful reminiscence upon her face, Jane turned in at
+the gate. She was totally unprepared for being met by a shower of
+missiles from upper windows.
+
+A lump of lard hit her on the ear and knocked her hat on to one side.
+She retreated hastily to the side gate.
+
+"Go on! Send her into the road."
+
+[Illustration: A SHOWER OF ONIONS, THE HAM BONE, AND A FEW POTATOES
+PURSUED HER INTO THE ROAD.]
+
+A shower of onions, the ham bone, and a few potatoes pursued her into
+the road. Shouts of triumph rent the air. Then the shouts of triumph
+died away abruptly. William's smile also faded away, and his hand, in
+the act of flinging an onion, dropped. A cab was turning in at the front
+gate. In the sudden silence that fell upon the party, cook's hoarse
+cries for vengeance rose with redoubled force from the coal cellar.
+William grew pale.
+
+The cab contained his family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours later a small feminine friend of William's who had called with
+a note for his mother, looked up to William's window and caught sight of
+William's untidy head.
+
+"Come and play with me, William," she called eagerly.
+
+"I can't. I'm goin' to bed," said William sternly.
+
+"Why? Are you ill, William?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, why are you going to bed, William?"
+
+William leant out of the window.
+
+"I'm goin' to bed," he said, "'cause my father don't understand 'bout
+English Grammar, that's why!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WILLIAM JOINS THE BAND OF HOPE
+
+
+"William! you've been playing that dreadful game again!" said Mrs. Brown
+despairingly.
+
+William, his suit covered with dust, his tie under one ear, his face
+begrimed and his knees cut, looked at her in righteous indignation.
+
+"I haven't. I haven't done anything what you said I'd not to. It was
+'Lions an' Tamers' what you said I'd not to play. Well, I've not played
+'Lions an' Tamers,' not since you said I'd not to. I wouldn't _do_
+it--not if thousands of people asked me to, not when you said I'd not
+to. I----"
+
+Mrs. Brown interrupted him.
+
+"Well, what _have_ you been playing at?" she said wearily.
+
+"It was 'Tigers an' Tamers.'" said William. "It's a different game
+altogether. In 'Lions an' Tamers' half of you is lions an' the other
+half tamers, an' the tamers try to tame the lions an' the lions try not
+to be tamed. That's 'Lions an' Tamers'. It's all there is to it. It's
+quite a little game."
+
+"What do you do in 'Tigers and Tamers'?" said Mrs. Brown suspiciously.
+
+"Well----"
+
+William considered deeply.
+
+"Well," he repeated lamely, "in '_Tigers_ an' Tamers' half of you is
+_tigers_--you see--and the other half----"
+
+"It's exactly the same thing, William," said Mrs. Brown with sudden
+spirit.
+
+"I don't see how you can call it the same thing," said William doggedly.
+"You can't call a _lion_ a _tiger_, can you? It jus' isn't one. They're
+in quite different cages in the Zoo. '_Tigers_ an' Tamers' can't be
+'zactly the same as '_Lions_ an' Tamers.'"
+
+"Well, then," said Mrs. Brown firmly, "you're never to play 'Tigers and
+Tamers' either. And now go and wash your face."
+
+William's righteous indignation increased.
+
+"My _face_?" he repeated as if he could hardly believe his ears. "My
+_face_? I've washed it twice to-day. I washed it when I got up an' I
+washed it for dinner. You told me to."
+
+"Well, just go and look at it."
+
+William walked over to the looking-glass and surveyed his reflection
+with interest. Then he passed his hands lightly over the discoloured
+surface of his face, stroked his hair back and straightened his tie.
+This done, he turned hopefully to his mother.
+
+"It's no good," she said. "You must wash your face and brush your hair
+and you'd better change your suit--and stockings. They're simply covered
+with dust!"
+
+William turned slowly to go from the room.
+
+"I shouldn't think," he said bitterly, as he went, "I shouldn't think
+there's many houses where so much washin' and brushin' goes on as in
+this, an' I'm glad for their sakes."
+
+She heard him coming downstairs ten minutes later.
+
+"William!" she called.
+
+He entered. He was transformed. His face and hair shone, he had changed
+his suit. His air of righteous indignation had not diminished.
+
+"That's better," said his mother approvingly. "Now, William, do just sit
+down here till tea-time. There's only about ten minutes, and it's no
+good your going out. You'll only get yourself into a mess again if you
+don't sit still."
+
+William glanced round the drawing-room with the air of one goaded beyond
+bearing.
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Well, dear--just till tea-time."
+
+"What can I do in here? There's nothing to _do_, is there? I can't sit
+still and not _do_ anything, can I?"
+
+"Oh, read a book. There are ever so many books over there you haven't
+read, and I'm sure you'd like some of them. Try one of Scott's," she
+ended rather doubtfully.
+
+William walked across the room with an expression of intense suffering,
+took out a book at random, and sat down in an attitude of aloof dignity,
+holding the book upside down.
+
+It was thus that Mrs. de Vere Carter found him when she was announced a
+moment later.
+
+Mrs. de Vere Carter was a recent addition to the neighbourhood. Before
+her marriage she had been one of _the_ Randalls of Hertfordshire.
+Everyone on whom Mrs. de Vere Carter smiled felt intensely flattered.
+She was tall, and handsome, and gushing, and exquisitely dressed. Her
+arrival had caused quite a sensation. Everyone agreed that she was
+"charming."
+
+[Illustration: MRS. DE VERE CARTER PRESSED WILLIAM'S HEAD TO HER BOSOM.]
+
+On entering Mrs. Brown's drawing-room, she saw a little boy, dressed
+very neatly, with a clean face and well-brushed hair, sitting quietly on
+a low chair in a corner reading a book.
+
+"The little dear!" she murmured as she shook hands with Mrs. Brown.
+
+William's face darkened.
+
+Mrs. de Vere Carter floated over to him.
+
+"Well, my little man, and how are you?"
+
+Her little man did not answer, partly because Mrs. de Vere Carter had
+put a hand on his head and pressed his face against her perfumed,
+befrilled bosom. His nose narrowly escaped being impaled on the thorn of
+a large rose that nestled there.
+
+"I adore children," she cooed to his mother over his head.
+
+William freed his head with a somewhat brusque movement and she took up
+his book.
+
+"Scott!" she murmured. "Dear little laddie!"
+
+Seeing the expression on William's face his mother hastily drew her
+guest aside.
+
+"_Do_ come and sit over here," she said nervously. "What perfect weather
+we're having."
+
+William walked out of the room.
+
+"You know, I'm _frightfully_ interested in social work," went on her
+charming guest, "especially among children. I _adore_ children! Sweet
+little dear of yours! And I _always_ get on with them. Of course, I get
+on with most people. My personality, you know! You've heard perhaps that
+I've taken over the Band of Hope here, and I'm turning it into _such_ a
+success. The pets! Yes, three lumps, please. Well, now, it's here I want
+you to help me. You will, dear, won't you? You and your little mannikin.
+I want to get a different class of children to join the Band of Hope.
+Such a sweet name, isn't it? It would do the village children such a lot
+of good to meet with children of _our_ class."
+
+Mrs. Brown was flattered. After all, Mrs. de Vere Carter was one of
+_the_ Randalls.
+
+"For instance," went on the flute-like tones, "when I came in and saw
+your little treasure sitting there so sweetly," she pointed dramatically
+to the chair that had lately been graced by William's presence, "I
+thought to myself, 'Oh, I _must_ get him to come.' It's the refining
+influence of children in _our_ class that the village children need.
+What delicious cakes. You will lend him to me, won't you? We meet once a
+week, on Wednesday afternoons. May he come? I'll take great care of
+him."
+
+Mrs. Brown hesitated.
+
+"Er--yes," she said doubtfully. "But I don't know that William is really
+suited to that sort of thing. However----"
+
+"Oh, you can't put me off!" said Mrs. de Vere Carter shaking a playful
+bejewelled finger. "Don't I _know_ him already? I count him one of my
+dearest little friends. It never takes me long to know children. I'm a
+_born_ child-lover."
+
+William happened to be passing through the hall as Mrs. de Vere Carter
+came out of the drawing-room followed by Mrs. Brown.
+
+"_There_ you are!" she said. "I _thought_ you'd be waiting to say
+good-bye to me."
+
+She stretched out her arm with an encircling movement, but William
+stepped back and stood looking at her with a sinister frown.
+
+"I _have_ so enjoyed seeing you. I hope you'll come again," untruthfully
+stammered Mrs. Brown, moving so as to block out the sight of William's
+face, but Mrs de Vere Carter was not to be checked. There are people to
+whom the expression on a child's face conveys absolutely nothing. Once
+more she floated towards William.
+
+"Good-bye, Willy, dear. You're not too old to kiss me, are you?"
+
+Mrs. Brown gasped.
+
+At the look of concentrated fury on William's face, older and stronger
+people than Mrs. de Vere Carter would have quailed, but she only smiled
+as, with another virulent glare at her, he turned on his heel and walked
+away.
+
+"The sweet, shy thing!" she cooed. "I _love_ them shy."
+
+Mr. Brown was told of the proposal.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "I can't quite visualise William at a Band of
+Hope meeting; but of course, if you want him to, he must go."
+
+"You see," said Mrs. Brown with a worried frown, "she made such a point
+of it, and she really is very charming, and after all she's rather
+influential. She was one of _the_ Randalls, you know. It seems silly to
+offend her."
+
+"Did William like her?"
+
+"She was sweet with him. At least--she meant to be sweet," she corrected
+herself hastily, "but you know how touchy William is, and you know the
+name he always hates so. I can never understand why. After all, lots of
+people are called Willy."
+
+The morning of the day of the Band of Hope meeting arrived. William came
+down to breakfast with an agonised expression on his healthy
+countenance. He sat down on his seat and raised his hand to his brow
+with a hollow groan.
+
+Mrs. Brown started up in dismay.
+
+"Oh, William! What's the matter?"
+
+"Gotter sick headache," said William in a faint voice.
+
+"Oh, dear! I _am_ sorry. You'd better go and lie down. I'm so sorry,
+dear."
+
+"I think I will go an' lie down," said William's plaintive, suffering
+voice. "I'll jus' have breakfast first."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't. Not with a sick headache."
+
+William gazed hungrily at the eggs and bacon.
+
+"I think I could eat some, mother. Jus' a bit."
+
+"No, I wouldn't, dear. It will only make it worse."
+
+Very reluctantly William returned to his room.
+
+Mrs. Brown visited him after breakfast.
+
+No, he was no better, but he thought he'd go for a little walk. Yes, he
+still felt very sick. She suggested a strong dose of salt and water. He
+might feel better if he'd been actually sick. No, he'd hate to give her
+the trouble. Besides, it wasn't _that_ kind of sickness. He was most
+emphatic on that point. It wasn't _that_ kind of sickness. He thought a
+walk would do him good. He felt he'd like a walk.
+
+Well wrapped up and walking with little, unsteady steps, he set off down
+the drive, followed by his mother's anxious eyes.
+
+Then he crept back behind the rhododendron bushes next to the wall and
+climbed in at the larder window.
+
+The cook came agitatedly to Mrs. Brown half an hour later, followed by
+William, pale and outraged.
+
+"'E's eat nearly everything, 'm. You never saw such a thing. 'E's eat
+the cold 'am and the kidney pie, and 'e's eat them three cold sausages
+an' 'e's eat all that new jar of lemon cheese."
+
+"_William!_" gasped Mrs. Brown, "you _can't_ have a sick headache, if
+you've eaten all that."
+
+That was the end of the sick headache.
+
+He spent the rest of the morning with Henry and Douglas and Ginger.
+William and Henry and Douglas and Ginger constituted a secret society
+called the Outlaws. It had few aims beyond that of secrecy. William was
+its acknowledged leader, and he was proud of the honour. If they
+knew--if they guessed. He grew hot and cold at the thought. Suppose they
+saw him going--or someone told them--he would never hold up his head
+again. He made tentative efforts to find out their plans for the
+afternoon. If only he knew where they'd be--he might avoid them somehow.
+But he got no satisfaction.
+
+[Illustration: "'E'S EAT NEARLY EVERYTHING, MUM. 'E'S EAT THE COLD 'AM
+AND THE KIDNEY PIE, AND 'E'S EAT THE JAR OF LEMON CHEESE!" COOK WAS PALE
+AND OUTRAGED]
+
+They spent the morning "rabbiting" in a wood with Henry's fox terrier,
+Chips, and William's mongrel, Jumble. None of them saw or heard a
+rabbit, but Jumble chased a butterfly and a bee, and scratched up a
+molehill, and was stung by a wasp, and Chips caught a field-mouse, so
+the time was not wasted.
+
+William's interest, however, was half-hearted. He was turning over plan
+after plan in his mind, all of which he finally rejected as
+impracticable.
+
+He entered the dining-room for lunch rather earlier than usual. Only
+Robert and Ethel, his elder brother and sister, were there. He came in
+limping, his mouth set into a straight line of agony, his brows
+frowning.
+
+"Hello! What's up?" said Robert, who had not been in at breakfast and
+had forgotten about the Band of Hope.
+
+"I've sprained my ankle," said William weakly.
+
+"Here, sit down, old chap, and let me feel it," said Robert
+sympathetically.
+
+William sat down meekly upon a chair.
+
+"Which is it?"
+
+"Er--this."
+
+"It's a pity you limped with the other," said Ethel drily.
+
+That was the end of the sprained ankle.
+
+The Band of Hope meeting was to begin at three. His family received with
+complete indifference his complaint of sudden agonising toothache at
+half-past two, of acute rheumatism at twenty-five to three, and of a
+touch of liver (William considered this a heaven-set inspiration. It was
+responsible for many of his father's absences from work) at twenty to
+three. At a quarter to three he was ready in the hall.
+
+"I'm sure you'll enjoy it, William," said Mrs. Brown soothingly. "I
+expect you'll all play games and have quite a good time."
+
+William treated her with silent contempt.
+
+"Hey, Jumble!" he called.
+
+After all, life could never be absolutely black, as long as it held
+Jumble.
+
+Jumble darted ecstatically from the kitchen regions, his mouth covered
+with gravy, dropping a half-picked bone on the hall carpet as he came.
+
+"William, you can't take a dog to a Band of Hope meeting."
+
+"Why not?" said William, indignantly. "I don't see why not. Dogs don't
+drink beer, do they? They've as much right at a Band of Hope meeting as
+I have, haven't they? There seems jus' nothin' anyone _can_ do."
+
+"Well, I'm sure it wouldn't be allowed. No one takes dogs to meetings."
+
+She held Jumble firmly by the collar, and William set off reluctantly
+down the drive.
+
+"I hope you'll enjoy it," she called cheerfully.
+
+He turned back and looked at her.
+
+"It's a wonder I'm not _dead_," he said bitterly, "the things I have to
+do!"
+
+He walked slowly--a dejected, dismal figure. At the gate he stopped and
+glanced cautiously up and down the road. There were three more figures
+coming down the road, with short intervals between them. They were
+Henry, Douglas and Ginger.
+
+William's first instinct was to dart back and wait till they had
+passed. Then something about their figures struck him. They also had a
+dejected, dismal, hang-dog look. He waited for the first one, Henry.
+Henry gave him a shamefaced glance and was going to pass him by.
+
+"You goin' too?" said William.
+
+Henry gasped in surprise.
+
+"Did she come to _your_ mother?" was his reply.
+
+He was surprised to see Ginger and Douglas behind him and Ginger was
+surprised to see Douglas behind him. They walked together sheepishly in
+a depressed silence to the Village Hall. Once Ginger raised a hand to
+his throat.
+
+"Gotter beas'ly throat," he complained, "I didn't ought to be out."
+
+"I'm ill, too," said Henry; "I _told_ 'em so."
+
+"An' me," said Douglas.
+
+"An' me," said William with a hoarse, mirthless laugh. "Cruel sorter
+thing, sendin' us all out ill like this."
+
+At the door of the Village Hall they halted, and William looked
+longingly towards the field.
+
+"It's no good," said Ginger sadly, "they'd find out."
+
+Bitter and despondent, they entered.
+
+Within sat a handful of gloomy children who, inspired solely by hopes of
+the annual treat, were regular attendants at the meeting.
+
+Mrs. de Vere Carter came sailing down to them, her frills and scarfs
+floating around her, bringing with her a strong smell of perfume.
+
+"Dear children," she said, "welcome to our little gathering. These," she
+addressed the regular members, who turned gloomy eyes upon the Outlaws,
+"these are our dear new friends. We must make them _so_ happy. _Dear_
+children!"
+
+She led them to seats in the front row, and taking her stand in front of
+them, addressed the meeting.
+
+"Now, girlies dear and laddies dear, what do I expect you to be at these
+meetings?"
+
+And in answer came a bored monotonous chant:
+
+"Respectful and reposeful."
+
+"I have a name, children dear."
+
+"Respectful and reposeful, Mrs. de Vere Carter."
+
+"That's it, children dear. Respectful and reposeful. Now, our little new
+friends, what do I expect you to be?"
+
+No answer.
+
+The Outlaws sat horrified, outraged, shamed.
+
+"You're _such_ shy darlings, aren't you?" she said, stretching out an
+arm.
+
+William retreated hastily, and Ginger's face was pressed hard against a
+diamond brooch.
+
+"You won't be shy with us long, I'm sure. We're _so_ happy here. Happy
+and good. Now, children dear, what is it we must be?"
+
+Again the bored monotonous chant:
+
+"Happy and good, Mrs. de Vere Carter."
+
+"That's it. Now, darlings, in the front row, you tell me. Willy, pet,
+you begin. What is it we must be?"
+
+At that moment William was nearer committing murder than at any other
+time in his life. He caught a gleam in Henry's eye. Henry would
+remember. William choked but made no answer.
+
+"You tell me then, Harry boy."
+
+Henry went purple and William's spirits rose.
+
+"Ah, you won't be so shy next week, will they, children dear?"
+
+"No, Mrs. de Vere Carter," came the prompt, listless response.
+
+"Now, we'll begin with one of our dear little songs. Give out the
+books." She seated herself at the piano. "Number five, 'Sparkling
+Water.' Collect your thoughts, children dear. Are you ready?"
+
+She struck the opening chords.
+
+The Outlaws, though provided with books, did not join in. They had no
+objection to water as a beverage. They merely objected to singing about
+it.
+
+Mrs. de Vere Carter rose from the piano.
+
+"Now, we'll play one of our games, children dear. You can begin by
+yourselves, can't you, darlings? I'll just go across the field and see
+why little Teddy Wheeler hasn't come. He must be _regular_, mustn't he,
+laddies dear? Now, what game shall we play. We had 'Puss in the Corner'
+last week, hadn't we? We'll have 'Here we go round the mulberry-bush'
+this week, shall we? No, not 'Blind Man's Buff,' darling. It's a horrid,
+rough game. Now, while I'm gone, see if you can make these four shy
+darlings more at home, will you? And play quietly. Now before I go tell
+me four things that you must be?"
+
+"Respectful and reposeful and happy and good, Mrs. de Vere Carter," came
+the chant.
+
+[Illustration: "GO IT, MEN! CATCH 'EM, BEAT 'EM, KNIFE 'EM, KILL 'EM!"
+THE TAMER ROARED.]
+
+She was away about a quarter of an hour. When she returned the game was
+in full swing, but it was not "Here we go round the mulberry-bush."
+There was a screaming, struggling crowd of children in the Village Hall.
+Benches were overturned and several chairs broken. With yells and
+whoops, and blows and struggles, the Tamers tried to tame; with growls
+and snarls and bites and struggles the animals tried not to be tamed.
+Gone was all listlessness and all boredom. And William, his tie hanging
+in shreds, his coat torn, his head cut, and his voice hoarse, led the
+fray as a Tamer.
+
+"Come on, you!"
+
+"I'll get you!"
+
+"Gr-r-r-r-r!"
+
+"Go it, men! Catch 'em, beat 'em, knife 'em, kill 'em."
+
+The spirited roarings and bellowing of the animals was almost
+blood-curdling.
+
+Above it all Mrs. de Vere Carter coaxed and expostulated and wrung her
+hands.
+
+"Respectful and reposeful," "happy and good," "laddies dear," and
+"Willy" floated unheeded over the tide of battle.
+
+Then somebody (reports afterwards differed as to who it was) rushed out
+of the door into the field and there the battle was fought to a finish.
+From there the Band of Hope (undismissed) reluctantly separated to its
+various homes, battered and bruised, but blissfully happy.
+
+Mrs. Brown was anxiously awaiting William's return.
+
+When she saw him she gasped and sat down weakly on a hall chair.
+
+"William!"
+
+"I've not," said William quickly, looking at her out of a fast-closing
+eye, "I've not been playing at either of them--not those what you said
+I'd not to."
+
+"Then--what----?"
+
+"It was--it was--'Tamers an' Crocerdiles,' an' we played it at the Band
+of Hope!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE OUTLAWS
+
+
+It was a half-holiday and William was in his bedroom making careful
+preparations for the afternoon. On the mantel-piece stood in readiness
+half a cake (the result of a successful raid on the larder) and a bottle
+of licorice water. This beverage was made by shaking up a piece of
+licorice in water. It was much patronised by the band of Outlaws to
+which William belonged and which met secretly every half-holiday in a
+disused barn about a quarter of a mile from William's house.
+
+So far the Outlaws had limited their activities to wrestling matches,
+adventure seeking, and culinary operations. The week before, they had
+cooked two sausages which William had taken from the larder on cook's
+night out and had conveyed to the barn beneath his shirt and next his
+skin. Perhaps "cooked" is too euphemistic a term. To be quite accurate,
+they had held the sausages over a smoking fire till completely
+blackened, and then consumed the charred remains with the utmost relish.
+
+William put the bottle of licorice water in one pocket and the half cake
+in another and was preparing to leave the house in his usual stealthy
+fashion--through the bathroom window, down the scullery roof, and down
+the water-pipe hand over hand to the back garden. Even when unencumbered
+by the presence of a purloined half cake, William infinitely preferred
+this mode of exit to the simpler one of walking out of the front-door.
+As he came out on to the landing, however, he heard the sound of the
+opening and shutting of the hall door and of exuberant greetings in the
+hall.
+
+"Oh! I'm _so_ glad you've come, dear. And is this the baby! The _duck_!
+Well, den, how's 'oo, den? Go--o--oo."
+
+This was William's mother.
+
+"Oh, crumbs!" said William and retreated hastily. He sat down on his bed
+to wait till the coast was clear. Soon came the sound of footsteps
+ascending the stairs.
+
+"Oh, William," said his mother, as she entered his room, "Mrs. Butler's
+come with her baby to spend the afternoon, and we'd arranged to go out
+till tea-time with the baby, but she's got such a headache, I'm
+insisting on her lying down for the afternoon in the drawing-room. But
+she's so worried about the baby not getting out this nice afternoon."
+
+"Oh!" said William, without interest.
+
+"Well, cook's out and Emma has to get the tea and answer the door, and
+Ethel's away, and I told Mrs. Butler I was _sure_ you wouldn't mind
+taking the baby out for a bit in the perambulator!"
+
+William stared at her, speechless. The Medusa's classic expression of
+horror was as nothing to William's at that moment. Then he moistened
+his lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.
+
+"_Me?_" he said. "_Me?_ _Me_ take a baby out in a pram?"
+
+"Well, dear," said his mother deprecatingly, "I know it's your half
+holiday, but you'd be out of doors getting the fresh air, which is the
+great thing. It's a nice baby and a nice pram and not heavy to push, and
+Mrs. Butler would be _so_ grateful to you."
+
+"Yes, I should think she'd be that," said William bitterly. "She'd have
+a right to be that if I took the baby out in a pram."
+
+"Now, William, I'm sure you'd like to help, and I'm sure you wouldn't
+like your father to hear that you wouldn't even do a little thing like
+that for poor Mrs. Butler. And she's got such a headache."
+
+"_A little thing like that!_" repeated William out of the bitterness of
+his soul.
+
+But the Fates were closing round him. He was aware that he would know no
+peace till he had done the horrible thing demanded of him. Sorrowfully
+and reluctantly he bowed to the inevitable.
+
+"All right," he muttered, "I'll be down in a minute."
+
+He heard them fussing over the baby in the hall. Then he heard his elder
+brother's voice.
+
+"You surely don't mean to say, mother," Robert was saying with the
+crushing superiority of eighteen, "that you're going to trust that child
+to--William."
+
+"Well," said William's mother, "someone has to take him out. It's such a
+lovely afternoon. I'm sure it's very kind of William, on his
+half-holiday, too. And she's got _such_ a headache."
+
+"Well, of course," said Robert in the voice of one who washes his hands
+of all further responsibility, "you know William as well as I do."
+
+"Oh, dear!" sighed William's mother. "And everything so nicely settled,
+Robert, and you must come and find fault with it all. If you don't want
+William to take him out, will you take him out yourself?"
+
+Robert retreated hastily to the dining-room and continued the
+conversation from a distance.
+
+"I don't want to take him out myself--thanks very much, all the same!
+All I say is--you know William as well as I do. I'm not finding fault
+with anything. I simply am stating a fact."
+
+Then William came downstairs.
+
+"Here he is, dear, all ready for you, and you needn't go far away--just
+up and down the road, if you like, but stay out till tea-time. He's a
+dear little baby, isn't he? And isn't it a nice Willy-Billy den, to take
+it out a nice ta-ta, while it's mummy goes bye-byes, den?"
+
+William blushed for pure shame.
+
+He pushed the pram down to the end of the road and round the corner. In
+comparison with William's feelings, the feelings of some of the early
+martyrs must have been pure bliss. A nice way for an Outlaw to spend the
+afternoon! He dreaded to meet any of his brother-outlaws, yet,
+irresistibly and as a magnet, their meeting-place attracted him. He
+wheeled the pram off the road and down the country lane towards the
+field which held their sacred barn. He stopped at the stile that led
+into the field and gazed wistfully across to the barn in the distance.
+The infant sat and sucked its thumb and stared at him. Finally it began
+to converse.
+
+"Blab--blab--blab--blab--blub--blub--blub!"
+
+"Oh, you shut up!" said William crushingly.
+
+Annoyed at the prolonged halt, it seized its pram cover, pulled it off
+its hooks, and threw it into the road. While William was picking it up,
+it threw the pillow on to his head. Then it chuckled. William began to
+conceive an active dislike of it. Suddenly the Great Idea came to him.
+His face cleared. He took a piece of string from his pocket and tied the
+pram carefully to the railings. Then, lifting the baby cautiously and
+gingerly out, he climbed the stile with it and set off across the fields
+towards the barn. He held the baby to his chest with both arms clasped
+tightly round its waist. Its feet dangled in the air. It occupied the
+time by kicking William in the stomach, pulling his hair, and putting
+its fingers in his eyes.
+
+"It beats me," panted William to himself, "what people see in babies!
+Scratchin' an' kickin' and blindin' folks and pullin' their hair all
+out!"
+
+When he entered the barn he was greeted by a sudden silence.
+
+"Look here!" began one outlaw in righteous indignation.
+
+"It's a kidnap," said William, triumphantly. "We'll get a ransom on it."
+
+They gazed at him in awed admiration. This was surely the cream of
+outlawry. He set the infant on the ground, where it toddled for a few
+steps and sat down suddenly and violently. It then stared fixedly at the
+tallest boy present and smiled seraphically.
+
+"Dad--dad--dad--dad--dad!"
+
+Douglas, the tallest boy, grinned sheepishly. "It thinks I'm its
+father," he explained complacently to the company.
+
+"Well," said Henry, who was William's rival for the leadership of the
+Outlaws, "What do we do first? That's the question."
+
+"In books," said the outlaw called Ginger, "they write a note to its
+people and say they want a ransom."
+
+"We won't do that--not just yet," said William hastily.
+
+"Well, it's not much sense holdin' somethin' up to ransom and not
+tellin' the folks that they've got to pay nor nothin', is it?" said
+Ginger with the final air of a man whose logic is unassailable.
+
+"N----oo," said William. "But----" with a gleam of hope--"who's got a
+paper and pencil? I'm simply statin' a fact. Who's got a paper and
+pencil?"
+
+No one spoke.
+
+"Oh, yes!" went on William in triumph. "Go on! Write a note. Write a
+note without paper and pencil, and we'll all watch. Huh!"
+
+"Well," said Ginger sulkily, "I don't s'pose they had paper and pencils
+in outlaw days. They weren't invented. They wrote on--on--on leaves or
+something," he ended vaguely.
+
+"Well, go on. Write on leaves," said William still more triumphant.
+"We're not stoppin' you are we? I'm simply statin' a fact. Write on
+leaves."
+
+They were interrupted by a yell of pain from Douglas. Flattered by the
+parental relations so promptly established by the baby, he had ventured
+to make its further acquaintance. With vague memories of his mother's
+treatment of infants, he had inserted a finger in its mouth. The infant
+happened to possess four front teeth, two upper and two lower, and they
+closed like a vice upon Douglas' finger. He was now examining the marks.
+
+"Look! Right deep down! See it? Wotcher think of that! Nearly to the
+bone! Pretty savage baby you've brought along," he said to William.
+
+"I jolly well know that," said William feelingly. "It's your own fault
+for touching it. It's all right if you leave it alone. Just don't touch
+it, that's all. Anyway, it's mine, and I never said you could go fooling
+about with it, did I? It wouldn't bite _me_, I bet!"
+
+"Well, what about the ransom?" persisted Henry.
+
+"Someone can go and tell its people and bring back the ransom,"
+suggested Ginger.
+
+There was a short silence. Then Douglas took his injured finger from his
+mouth and asked pertinently:
+
+"Who?"
+
+"William brought it," suggested Henry.
+
+"Yes, so I bet I've done my share."
+
+"Well, what's anyone else goin' to do, I'd like to know? Go round to
+every house in this old place and ask if they've had a baby taken off
+them and if they'd pay a ransom for it back? That's sense, isn't it? You
+know where you got it from, don't you, and you can go and get its
+ransom."
+
+"I can, but I'm not goin' to," said William finally. "I'm simply statin'
+a fact. I'm not goin' to. And if anyone says I daren't," (glancing round
+pugnaciously) "I'll fight 'em for it."
+
+No one said he daren't. The fact was too patent to need stating. Henry
+hastily changed the subject.
+
+"Anyway, what have we brought for the feast?"
+
+William produced his licorice water and half cake, Douglas two slices of
+raw ham and a dog biscuit, Ginger some popcorn and some cold boiled
+potatoes wrapped up in newspaper, Henry a cold apple dumpling and a
+small bottle of paraffin-oil.
+
+"I knew the wood would be wet after the rain. It's to make the fire
+burn. That's sense, isn't it?"
+
+"Only one thing to cook," said Ginger sadly, looking at the slices of
+ham.
+
+"We can cook up the potatoes and the dumpling. They don't look half
+enough cooked. Let's put them on the floor here, and go out for
+adventures first. All different ways and back in a quarter of an hour."
+
+The Outlaws generally spent part of the afternoon dispersed in search of
+adventure. So far they had wooed the Goddess of Danger chiefly by
+trespassing on the ground of irascible farmers in hopes of a chase which
+were generally fulfilled.
+
+They deposited their store on the ground in a corner of the barn, and
+with a glance at the "kidnap," who was seated happily upon the floor
+engaged in chewing its hat-strings, they went out, carefully closing the
+door.
+
+After a quarter of an hour Ginger and William arrived at the door
+simultaneously from opposite directions.
+
+"Any luck?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Same here. Let's start the old fire going."
+
+They opened the door and went in. The infant was sitting on the floor
+among the stores, or rather among what was left of the stores. There was
+paraffin-oil on its hair, face, arms, frock and feet. It was drenched in
+paraffin-oil. The empty bottle and its hat lay by its side. Mingled with
+the paraffin-oil all over its person was cold boiled potato. It was
+holding the apple-dumpling in its hand.
+
+"Ball!" it announced ecstatically from behind its mask of potato and
+paraffin-oil.
+
+They stood in silence for a minute. Then, "Who's going to make that fire
+burn now?" said Ginger, glaring at the empty bottle.
+
+"Yes," said William slowly, "an' who's goin' to take that baby home? I'm
+simply statin' a fact. Who's goin' to take that baby home?"
+
+There was no doubt that when William condescended to adopt a phrase from
+any of his family's vocabularies, he considerably overworked it.
+
+"Well, it did it itself. It's no one else's fault, is it?"
+
+"No, it's not," said William. "But that's the sort of thing folks never
+see. Anyway, I'm goin' to wash its face."
+
+"What with?"
+
+William took out his grimy handkerchief and advanced upon his prey. His
+bottle of licorice water was lying untouched in the corner. He took out
+the cork.
+
+"Goin' to wash it in that dirty stuff?"
+
+"It's made of water--clean water--I made it myself, so I bet I ought to
+know, oughtn't I? That's what folks wash in, isn't it?--clean water?"
+
+"Yes," bitterly, "and what are we goin' to drink, I'd like to know?
+You'd think that baby had got enough of our stuff--our potatoes and our
+apple-dumpling, an' our oil--without you goin' an' givin' it our
+licorice water as well."
+
+William was passing his handkerchief, moistened with licorice water,
+over the surface of the baby's face. The baby had caught a corner of it
+firmly between its teeth and refused to release it.
+
+"If you'd got to take this baby home like this," he said, "you wouldn't
+be thinking much about drinking licorice water. I'm simply statin'----"
+
+"Oh, shut up saying that!" said Ginger in sudden exasperation. "I'm sick
+of it."
+
+At that moment the door was flung open and in walked slowly a large cow
+closely followed by Henry and Douglas.
+
+Henry's face was one triumphant beam. He felt that his prestige,
+eclipsed by William's kidnapping coup, was restored.
+
+"I've brought a cow," he announced, "fetched it all the way from Farmer
+Litton's field--five fields off, too, an' it took some fetching, too."
+
+"Well, what for?" said William after a moment's silence.
+
+Henry gave a superior laugh.
+
+"What for! You've not read much about outlaws, I guess. They always
+drove in cattle from the surroundin' districks."
+
+"Well, what for?" said William again, giving a tug at his handkerchief,
+which the infant still refused to release.
+
+"Well--er--well--to kill an' roast, I suppose," said Henry lamely.
+
+"Well, go on," said William. "Kill it an' roast it. We're not stoppin'
+you, are we? Kill it an' roast it--an' get hung for murder. I s'pose
+it's murder to kill cows same as it is to kill people--'cept for
+butchers."
+
+The cow advanced slowly and deprecatingly towards the "kidnap," who
+promptly dropped the handkerchief and beamed with joy.
+
+"Bow-wow!" it said excitedly.
+
+"Anyway, let's get on with the feast," said Douglas.
+
+"Feast!" echoed Ginger bitterly. "Feast! Not much feast left! That baby
+William brought's used all the paraffin-oil and potatoes, and it's
+squashed the apple-dumpling, and William's washed its face in the
+licorice water."
+
+Henry gazed at it dispassionately and judicially.
+
+"Yes--it looks like as if someone had washed it in licorice water--and
+as if it had used up all the oil and potatoes. It doesn't look like as
+if it would fetch much ransom. You seem to have pretty well mucked it
+up."
+
+"Oh, shut up about the baby," said William picking up his damp and now
+prune-coloured handkerchief. "I'm just about sick of it. Come on with
+the fire."
+
+They made a little pile of twigs in the field and began the process of
+lighting it.
+
+"I hope that cow won't hurt the 'kidnap,'" said Douglas suddenly. "Go
+and see, William; it's your kidnap."
+
+"Well, an' it's Henry's cow, and I'm sorry for that cow if it tries
+playin' tricks on that baby."
+
+But he rose from his knees reluctantly, and threw open the barn door.
+The cow and the baby were still gazing admiringly at each other. From
+the cow's mouth at the end of a long, sodden ribbon, hung the chewed
+remains of the baby's hat. The baby was holding up the dog biscuit and
+crowed delightfully as the cow bent down its head and cautiously and
+gingerly smelt it. As William entered, the cow turned round and switched
+its tail against the baby's head. At the piercing howl that followed,
+the whole band of outlaws entered the barn.
+
+"What are you doing to the poor little thing?" said Douglas to William.
+
+"It's Henry's cow," said William despairingly. "It hit it. Oh, go on,
+shut up! Do shut up."
+
+The howls redoubled.
+
+"You brought it," said Henry accusingly, raising his voice to be heard
+above the baby's fury and indignation. "Can't you stop it? Not much
+sense taking babies about if you don't know how to stop 'em crying!"
+
+[Illustration: FROM THE COW'S MOUTH HUNG THE CHEWED REMAINS OF THE HAT.
+THE COW AND THE BABY GAZED ADMIRINGLY AT EACH OTHER.]
+
+The baby was now purple in the face.
+
+The Outlaws stood around and watched it helplessly.
+
+"P'raps it's hungry," suggested Douglas.
+
+He took up the half cake from the remains of the stores and held it out
+tentatively to the baby. The baby stopped crying suddenly.
+
+"Dad--dad--dad--dad--dad," it said tearfully.
+
+Douglas blushed and grinned.
+
+"Keeps on thinking I'm its father," he said with conscious superiority.
+"Here, like some cake?"
+
+The baby broke off a handful and conveyed it to its mouth.
+
+"It's eating it," cried Douglas in shrill excitement. After thoroughly
+masticating it, however, the baby repented of its condescension and
+ejected the mouthful in several instalments.
+
+William blushed for it.
+
+"Oh, come on, let's go and look at the fire," he said weakly.
+
+They left the barn and returned to the scene of the fire-lighting. The
+cow, still swinging the remains of the baby's hat from its mouth, was
+standing with its front feet firmly planted on the remains of what had
+been a promising fire.
+
+"Look!" cried William, in undisguised pleasure. "Look at Henry's cow!
+Pretty nice sort of cow you've brought, Henry. Not much sense taking
+cows about if you can't stop them puttin' folks' fires out."
+
+After a heated argument, the Outlaws turned their attention to the cow.
+The cow refused to be "shoo'd off." It simply stood immovable and stared
+them out. Ginger approached cautiously and gave it a little push. It
+switched its tail into his eye and continued to munch the baby's
+hat-string. Upon William's approaching it lowered its head, and William
+retreated hastily. At last they set off to collect some fresh wood and
+light a fresh fire. Soon they were blissfully consuming two blackened
+slices of ham, the popcorn, and what was left of the cake.
+
+After the "feast," Ginger and William, as Wild Indians, attacked the
+barn, which was defended by Douglas and Henry. The "kidnap" crawled
+round inside on all fours, picking up any treasures it might come across
+_en route_ and testing their effect on its palate.
+
+Occasionally it carried on a conversation with its defenders, bringing
+with it a strong perfume of paraffin oil as it approached.
+
+"Blab--blab--blab--blab--blub--blub--Dad--dad--dad--dad--dad.
+Go--o--o--o."
+
+William had insisted on a place on the attacking side.
+
+"I couldn't put any feelin'," he explained, "into fightin' for that
+baby."
+
+When they finally decided to set off homewards, William gazed hopelessly
+at his charge. Its appearance defies description. For many years
+afterwards William associated babies in his mind with paraffin-oil and
+potato.
+
+"Just help me get the potato out of its hair," he pleaded; "never mind
+the oil and the rest of it."
+
+[Illustration: "THAT'S MY PRAM!" SAID WILLIAM TO THE CARGO, AS THEY
+EMERGED JOYFULLY FROM THE DITCH.]
+
+"My hat! doesn't it smell funny!--and doesn't it look funny--all oil and
+potato and bits of cake!" said Ginger.
+
+"Oh! shut up about it," said William irritably.
+
+The cow followed them down to the stile and watched them sardonically as
+they climbed it.
+
+"Bow-wow!" murmured the baby in affectionate farewell.
+
+William looked wildly round for the pram, but--the pram was gone--only
+the piece of string dangled from the railings.
+
+"Crumbs!" said William, "Talk about bad luck! I'm simply statin' a fact.
+Talk about bad luck!"
+
+At that minute the pram appeared, charging down the hill at full speed
+with a cargo of small boys. At the bottom of the hill it overturned into
+a ditch accompanied by its cargo. To judge from its appearance, it had
+passed the afternoon performing the operation.
+
+"That's my pram!" said William to the cargo, as it emerged, joyfully,
+from the ditch.
+
+"Garn! S'ours! We found it."
+
+"Well, I left it there."
+
+"Come on! We'll fight for it," said Ginger, rolling up his sleeves in a
+businesslike manner. The other Outlaws followed his example. The pram's
+cargo eyed them appraisingly.
+
+"Oh, all right! Take your rotten old pram!" they said at last.
+
+Douglas placed the baby in its seat and William thoughtfully put up the
+hood to shield his charge as far as possible from the curious gaze of
+the passers-by. His charge was now chewing the pram cover and talking
+excitedly to itself. With a "heart steeled for any fate" William turned
+the corner into his own road. The baby's mother was standing at his
+gate.
+
+"There you are!" she called. "I was getting quite anxious. Thank you
+_so_ much, dear."
+
+BUT THAT IS WHAT SHE SAID BEFORE SHE SAW THE BABY!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WILLIAM AND WHITE SATIN
+
+
+"I'd simply love to have a page," murmured Miss Grant wistfully. "A
+wedding seems so--second-rate without a page."
+
+Mrs. Brown, her aunt and hostess, looked across the tea-table at her
+younger son, who was devouring iced cake with that disregard for
+consequences which is the mark of youth.
+
+"There's William," she said doubtfully. Then, "You've had quite enough
+cake, William."
+
+Miss Grant studied William's countenance, which at that moment expressed
+intense virtue persecuted beyond all bearing.
+
+"_Enough!_" he repeated. "I've had hardly any yet. I was only jus'
+beginning to have some when you looked at me. It's a plain cake. It
+won't do me any harm. I wu'nt eat it if it'd do me any harm. Sugar's
+_good_ for you. Animals eat it to keep healthy. _Horses_ eat it an' it
+don't do 'em any _harm_, an' poll parrots an' things eat it an' it don't
+do 'em any----"
+
+"Oh, don't argue, William," said his mother wearily.
+
+William's gift of eloquence was known and feared in his family circle.
+
+Then Miss Grant brought out the result of her study of his countenance.
+
+"He's got such a--_modern_ face!" she said. "There's something
+essentially mediaeval and romantic about the idea of a page."
+
+Mrs. Brown (from whose house the wedding was to take place) looked
+worried.
+
+"There's nothing mediaeval or romantic about William," she said.
+
+"Well,"--Miss Grant's intellectual face lit up--"what about his cousin
+Dorita. They're about the same age, aren't they? Both eleven. Well, the
+_two_ of them in white satin with bunches of holly. Don't you think?
+Would you mind having her to stay for the ceremony?" (Miss Grant always
+referred to her wedding as "the ceremony.") "If you don't have his hair
+cut for a bit, he mightn't look so bad?"
+
+William had retired to the garden with his three bosom friends--Ginger,
+Henry, and Douglas--where he was playing his latest game of
+mountaineering. A plank had been placed against the garden wall, and up
+this scrambled the three, roped together and wearing feathers in their
+caps. William was wearing an old golf cap of his mother's, and mentally
+pictured himself as an impressive and heroic figure. Before they reached
+the top they invariably lost their foothold, rolled down the plank and
+fell in a confused and bruised heap at the bottom. The bruises in no way
+detracted from the charm of the game. To William the fascination of any
+game consisted mainly in the danger to life and limb involved. The game
+had been suggested by an old alpenstock which had been thoughtlessly
+presented to William by a friend of Mr. Brown's. The paint of the
+staircase and upstairs corridor had been completely ruined before the
+family knew of the gift, and the alpenstock had been confiscated for a
+week, then restored on the condition that it was not to be brought into
+the house. The result was the game of mountaineering up the plank. They
+carried the alpenstock in turns, but William had two turns running to
+mark the fact that he was its proud possessor.
+
+Mrs. Brown approached William on the subject of his prospective _role_
+of page with a certain apprehension. The normal attitude of William's
+family towards William was one of apprehension.
+
+"Would you like to go to Cousin Sybil's wedding?" she said.
+
+"No, I wu'nt," said William without hesitation.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go dressed up?" she said.
+
+"Red Injun?" said William with a gleam of hope.
+
+"Er--no, not exactly."
+
+"Pirate?"
+
+"Not quite."
+
+"I'd go as a Red Injun, or I'd go as a Pirate," he said firmly, "but I
+wu'nt go as anything else."
+
+"A page," said Miss Grant's clear, melodious voice, "is a mediaeval and
+romantic idea, William. There's the glamour of chivalry about it that
+should appeal strongly to a boy of your age."
+
+William turned his inscrutable countenance upon her and gave her a cold
+glare.
+
+They discussed his costume in private.
+
+[Illustration: "WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO COUSIN SYBIL'S WEDDING?" SHE
+ASKED. "NO, I WU'NT," SAID WILLIAM WITHOUT HESITATION.]
+
+"I've got a pair of lovely white silk stockings," said his mother.
+"They'd do for tights, and Ethel has got a satin petticoat that's just
+beginning to go in one place. I should think we could make some sort of
+costume from that, don't you? We'll buy some more white satin and get
+some patterns."
+
+"No, I won't wear Ethel's ole clothes," said William smouldering. "You
+all jus' want to make me look ridiclus. You don't care how ridiclus I
+look. I shall be ridiclus all the rest of my life goin' about in Ethel's
+ole clothes. I jus' won't do it. I jus' won't go to any ole weddin'. No,
+I _don't_ want to see Cousin Sybil married, an' I jus' _won't_ be made
+look ridiclus in Ethel's ole clothes."
+
+They reasoned and coaxed and threatened, but in vain. Finally William
+yielded to parental authority and went about his world with an air of a
+martyr doomed to the stake. Even the game of mountaineering had lost its
+charm and the alpenstock lay neglected against the garden wall. The
+attitude of his select circle of friends was not encouraging.
+
+"Yah! _Page!_ Who's goin' to be a _page_? Oh, crumbs. A page all dressed
+up in white. _Dear_ little Willie. Won't he look swe-e-e-et?"
+
+Life became very full. It was passed chiefly in the avenging of insults.
+William cherished a secret hope that the result of this would be to
+leave him disfigured for life and so unable to attend the wedding.
+However, except for a large lump on his forehead, he was none the worse.
+He eyed the lump thoughtfully in his looking-glass and decided that with
+a little encouragement it might render his public appearance in an
+affair of romance an impossibility. But the pain which resulted from one
+heroic effort at banging it against the wall caused him to abandon the
+plan.
+
+Dorita arrived the next week, and with her her small brother, Michael,
+aged three. Dorita was slim and graceful, with a pale little oval face
+and dark curling hair.
+
+Miss Grant received her on the doorstep.
+
+"Well, my little maid of honour?" she said in her flute-like tones.
+"Welcome! We're going to be such friends--you and me and William--the
+bride" (she blushed and bridled becomingly) "and her little page and her
+little maid of honour. William's a boy, and he's just a _leetle_ bit
+thoughtless and doesn't realise the romance of it all. I'm sure you
+will. I see it in your dear little face. We'll have some lovely talks
+together." Her eyes fell upon Michael and narrowed suddenly. "He'd look
+sweet, too, in white satin, wouldn't he?" turning to Mrs. Brown. "He
+could walk between them.... We could buy some more white satin...."
+
+When they had gone the maid of honour turned dark, long-lashed, demure
+eyes upon William.
+
+"Soft mug, that," she said in clear refined tones, nodding in the
+direction of the door through which the tall figure of Miss Grant had
+just disappeared.
+
+William was vaguely cheered by her attitude.
+
+"Are you keen on this piffling wedding affair?" she went on carelessly,
+"'cause I jolly well tell you I'm not."
+
+William felt that he had found a kindred spirit. He unbent so far as to
+take her to the stable and show her a field-mouse he had caught and was
+keeping in a cardboard box.
+
+"I'm teachin' it to dance," he confided, "an' it oughter fetch a jolly
+lot of money when it can dance proper. Dancin' mice do, you know. They
+show 'em on the stage, and people on the stage get pounds an' pounds
+every night, so I bet mice do, too--at least the folks the mice belong
+to what dance on the stage. I'm teachin' it to dance by holdin' a
+biscuit over its head and movin' it about. It bit me twice yesterday."
+He proudly displayed his mutilated finger. "I only caught it yesterday.
+It oughter learn all right to-day," he added hopefully.
+
+Her intense disappointment, when the only trace of the field-mouse that
+could be found was the cardboard box with a hole gnawed at one corner,
+drew William's heart to her still more.
+
+He avoided Henry, Douglas and Ginger. Henry, Douglas and Ginger had
+sworn to be at the church door to watch William descend from the
+carriage in the glory of his white satin apparel, and William felt that
+friendship could not stand the strain.
+
+He sat with Dorita on the cold and perilous perch of the garden wall and
+discussed Cousin Sybil and the wedding. Dorita's language delighted and
+fascinated William.
+
+"She's a soppy old luny," she would remark sweetly, shaking her dark
+curls. "The soppiest old luny you'd see in any old place on _this_ old
+earth, you betcher life! She's made of sop. I wouldn't be found dead in
+a ditch with her--wouldn't touch her with the butt-end of a bargepole.
+She's an assified cow, she is. Humph!"
+
+[Illustration: "SHE'S A SOPPY OLD LUNY!" DORITA REMARKED SWEETLY.]
+
+"Those children are a _leetle_ disappointing as regards character--to a
+child lover like myself," confided Miss Grant to her intellectual
+_fiance_. "I've tried to sound their depths, but there are no depths to
+sound. There is none of the mystery, the glamour, the 'clouds of glory'
+about them. They are so--so material."
+
+The day of the ordeal drew nearer and nearer, and William's spirits sank
+lower and lower. His life seemed to stretch before him--youth, manhood,
+and old age--dreary and desolate, filled only with humiliation and
+shame. His prestige and reputation would be blasted for ever. He would
+no longer be William--the Red Indian, the pirate, the daredevil. He
+would simply be the Boy Who Went to a Wedding Dressed in White Satin.
+Evidently there would be a surging crowd of small boys at the church
+door. Every boy for miles round who knew William even by sight had
+volunteered the information that he would be there. William was to ride
+with Dorita and Michael in the bride's carriage. In imagination he
+already descended from the carriage and heard the chorus of jeers. His
+cheeks grew hot at the thought. His life for years afterwards would
+consist solely in the avenging of insults. He followed the figure of the
+blushing bride-to-be with a baleful glare. In his worst moments he
+contemplated murder. The violence of his outburst when his mother mildly
+suggested a wedding present to the bride from her page and maid of
+honour horrified her.
+
+"I'm bein' made look ridiclus all the rest of my life," he ended. "I'm
+not givin' her no present. I know what I'd _like_ to give her," he added
+darkly.
+
+"Yes, and I _do_, too."
+
+Mrs. Brown forebore to question further.
+
+The day of the wedding dawned coldly bright and sunny. William's
+expressions of agony and complaints of various startling symptoms of
+serious illnesses were ignored by his experienced family circle.
+
+Michael was dressed first of the three in his minute white satin suit
+and sent down into the morning-room to play quietly. Then an unwilling
+William was captured from the darkest recess of the stable and dragged
+pale and protesting to the slaughter.
+
+"Yes, an' I'll _die_ pretty soon, prob'ly," he said pathetically, "and
+then p'r'aps you'll be a bit sorry, an' I shan't care."
+
+In Michael there survived two of the instincts of primitive man, the
+instinct of foraging for food and that of concealing it from his enemies
+when found. Earlier in the day he had paid a visit to the kitchen and
+found it empty. Upon the table lay a pound of butter and a large bag of
+oranges. These he had promptly confiscated and, with a fear of
+interruption born of experience, he had retired with them under the
+table in the morning-room. Before he could begin his feast he had been
+called upstairs to be dressed for the ceremony. On his return
+(immaculate in white satin) he found to his joy that his treasure trove
+had not been discovered. He began on the butter first. What he could not
+eat he smeared over his face and curly hair. Then he felt a sudden
+compunction and tried to remove all traces of the crime by rubbing his
+face and hair violently with a woolly mat. Then he sat down on the
+Chesterfield and began the oranges. They were very yellow and juicy and
+rather overripe. He crammed them into his mouth with both little fat
+hands at once. He was well aware, even at his tender years, that life's
+sweetest joys come soonest to an end. Orange juice mingled with wool
+fluff and butter on his small round face. It trickled down his cheeks
+and fell on to his white lace collar. His mouth and the region round it
+were completely yellow. He had emptied the oranges out of the bag all
+around him on the seat. He was sitting in a pool of juice. His suit was
+covered with it, mingled with pips and skin, and still he ate on.
+
+His first interruption was William and Dorita, who came slowly
+downstairs holding hands in silent sympathy, two gleaming figures in
+white satin. They walked to the end of the room. They also had been sent
+to the morning-room with orders to "play quietly" until summoned.
+
+"_Play?_" William had echoed coldly. "I don't feel much like _playing_."
+
+They stared at Michael, openmouthed and speechless. Lumps of butter and
+bits of wool stuck in his curls and adhered to the upper portion of his
+face. They had been washed away from the lower portion of it by orange
+juice. His suit was almost covered with it. Behind he was saturated with
+it.
+
+"_Crumbs!_" said William at last.
+
+"_You'll_ catch it," remarked his sister.
+
+Michael retreated hastily from the scene of his misdeeds.
+
+"Mickyth good now," he lisped deprecatingly.
+
+They looked at the seat he had left--a pool of crushed orange fragments
+and juice. Then they looked at each other.
+
+"_He'll_ not be able to go," said Dorita slowly.
+
+Again they looked at the empty orange-covered Chesterfield and again
+they looked at each other.
+
+"Heth kite good now," said Michael hopefully.
+
+Then the maid of honour, aware that cold deliberation often kills the
+most glorious impulses, seized William's hand.
+
+"Sit down. _Quick!_" she whispered sharply.
+
+Without a word they sat down. They sat till they felt the cold moisture
+penetrate to their skins. Then William heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"_We_ can't go now," he said.
+
+Through the open door they saw a little group coming--Miss Grant in
+shining white, followed by William's mother, arrayed in her brightest
+and best, and William's father, whose expression revealed a certain
+weariness mingled with a relief that the whole thing would soon be over.
+
+"Here's the old sardine all togged up," whispered Dorita.
+
+"William! Dorita! Michael!" they called.
+
+Slowly William, Dorita and Michael obeyed the summons.
+
+When Miss Grant's eyes fell upon the strange object that was Michael,
+she gave a loud scream.
+
+"_Michael!_ Oh, the _dreadful_ child!"
+
+She clasped the centre of the door and looked as though about to swoon.
+
+Michael began to sob.
+
+"_Poor_ Micky," he said through his tears. "He feelth tho thick."
+
+They removed him hastily.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said Mrs. Brown soothingly, "the other two look
+sweet."
+
+But Mr. Brown had wandered further into the room and thus obtained a
+sudden and startling view of the page and maid of honour from behind.
+
+"What? Where?" he began explosively.
+
+William and Dorita turned to him instinctively, thus providing Mrs.
+Brown and the bride with the spectacle that had so disturbed him.
+
+The bride gave a second scream--shriller and wilder than the first.
+
+"Oh, what have they done? Oh, the _wretched_ children! And just when I
+wanted to feel _calm_. Just when all depends on my feeling _calm_. Just
+when----"
+
+"We was walkin' round the room an' we sat down on the Chesterfield and
+there was this stuff on it an' it came on our clothes," explained
+William stonily and monotonously and all in one breath.
+
+"_Why_ did you sit down," said his mother.
+
+"We was walkin' round an' we jus' felt tired and we sat down on the
+Chesterfield and there was this stuff on it an' it came on----"
+
+"Oh, _stop_! Didn't you _see_ it there?"
+
+William considered.
+
+"Well, we was jus' walking round the room," he said, "an' we jus' felt
+tired and we sat----"
+
+"_Stop_ saying that."
+
+"Couldn't we make _cloaks_?" wailed the bride, "to hang down and cover
+them all up behind. It wouldn't take long----"
+
+Mr. Brown took out his watch.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WAS THIS STUFF ON THE CHESTERFIELD, AND IT CAME ON
+OUR CLOTHES," WILLIAM EXPLAINED STONILY ALL IN ONE BREATH.]
+
+"The carriage has been waiting a quarter of an hour already," he said
+firmly. "We've no time to spare. Come along, my dear. We'll continue the
+investigation after the service. You can't go, of course, you must stay
+at home now," he ended, turning a stern eye upon William. There was an
+unconscious note of envy in his voice.
+
+"And I did so _want_ to have a page," said Miss Grant plaintively as she
+turned away.
+
+Joy and hope returned to William with a bound. As the sound of wheels
+was heard down the drive he turned head over heels several times on the
+lawn, then caught sight of his long-neglected alpenstock leaning against
+a wall.
+
+"Come on," he shouted joyfully. "I'll teach you a game I made up. It's
+mountaineerin'."
+
+She watched him place a plank against the wall and begin his perilous
+ascent.
+
+"You're a mug," she said in her clear, sweet voice. "I know a
+mountaineering game worth ten of that old thing."
+
+And it says much for the character and moral force of the maid-of-honour
+that William meekly put himself in the position of pupil.
+
+It must be explained at this point that the domestics of the Brown
+household were busy arranging refreshments in a marquee in the garden.
+The front hall was quite empty.
+
+In about a quarter of an hour the game of mountaineering was in full
+swing. On the lowest steps of the staircase reposed the mattress from
+William's father's and mother's bed, above it the mattress from Miss
+Grant's bed, above that the mattress from William's bed, and on the top,
+the mattress from Dorita's bed. In all the bedrooms the bedclothes lay
+in disarray on the floor. A few nails driven through the ends of the
+mattresses into the stairs secured the stability of the "mountain."
+Still wearing their robes of ceremony, they scrambled up in stockinged
+feet, every now and then losing foothold and rolling down to the pile of
+pillows and bolsters (taken indiscriminately from all the beds) which
+was arranged at the foot of the staircase. Their mirth was riotous and
+uproarious. They used the alpenstock in turns. It was a great help. They
+could get a firm hold on the mattresses with the point of the
+alpenstock. William stood at the top of the mountain, hot and panting,
+his alpenstock in his hand, and paused for breath. He was well aware
+that retribution was not far off--was in the neighbouring church, to be
+quite exact, and would return in a carriage within the next few minutes.
+He was aware that an explanation of the yellow stain was yet to be
+demanded. He was aware that this was not a use to which the family
+mattresses could legitimately be put. But he cared for none of these
+things. In his mind's eye he only saw a crowd of small boys assembled
+outside a church door with eager eyes fixed on a carriage from which
+descended--Miss Grant, Mrs. Brown, and Mr. Brown. His life stretched
+before him bright and rose-coloured. A smile of triumph curved his lips.
+
+"Yah! Who waited at a church for someone what never came? Yah!"
+
+"I hope you didn't get a bad cold waitin' for me on Wednesday at the
+church door."
+
+"Some folks is easy had. I bet you all believed I was coming on
+Wednesday."
+
+[Illustration: THEY USED THE ALPENSTOCK IN TURNS--IT WAS A GREAT HELP.]
+
+Such sentences floated idly through his mind.
+
+"I say, my turn for that stick with the spike."
+
+William handed it to her in silence.
+
+"I say," she repeated, "what do you think of this marriage business?"
+
+"Dunno," said William laconically.
+
+"If I'd got to marry," went on the maid of honour, "I'd as soon marry
+_you_ as anyone."
+
+"I wu'nt mind," said the page gallantly. "But," he added hastily, "in
+ornery clothes."
+
+"Oh, yes," she lost her foothold and rolled down to the pile of pillows.
+From them came her voice muffled, but clear as ever. "You betcher life.
+In ornery clothes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WILLIAM'S NEW YEAR'S DAY
+
+
+William went whistling down the street, his hands in his pockets.
+William's whistle was more penetrating than melodious. Sensitive people
+fled shuddering at the sound. The proprietor of the sweet-shop, however,
+was not sensitive. He nodded affably as William passed. William was a
+regular customer of his--as regular, that is, as a wholly inadequate
+allowance would permit. Encouraged William paused at the doorway and
+ceased to whistle.
+
+"'Ullo, Mr. Moss!" he said.
+
+"'Ullo, William!" said Mr. Moss.
+
+"Anythin' cheap to-day?" went on William hopefully.
+
+Mr. Moss shook his head.
+
+"Twopence an ounce cheapest," he said.
+
+William sighed.
+
+"That's awful _dear_," he said.
+
+"What isn't dear? Tell me that. What isn't dear?" said Mr. Moss
+lugubriously.
+
+"Well, gimme two ounces. I'll pay you to-morrow," said William casually.
+
+Mr. Moss shook his head.
+
+"Go on!" said William. "I get my money to-morrow. You know I get my
+money to-morrow."
+
+"Cash, young sir," said Mr. Moss heavily. "My terms is cash. 'Owever,"
+he relented, "I'll give you a few over when the scales is down to-morrow
+for a New Year's gift."
+
+"Honest Injun?"
+
+"Honest Injun."
+
+"Well, gimme them now then," said William.
+
+Mr. Moss hesitated.
+
+"They wouldn't be no New Year's gift then, would they?" he said.
+
+William considered.
+
+"I'll eat 'em to-day but I'll _think_ about 'em to-morrow," he promised.
+"That'll make 'em a New Year's gift."
+
+Mr. Moss took out a handful of assorted fruit drops and passed them to
+William. William received them gratefully.
+
+"An' what good resolution are you going to take to-morrow?" went on Mr.
+Moss.
+
+William crunched in silence for a minute, then,
+
+"Good resolution?" he questioned. "I ain't got none."
+
+"You've got to have a good resolution for New Year's Day," said Mr. Moss
+firmly.
+
+"Same as giving up sugar in tea in Lent and wearing blue on Oxford and
+Cambridge Boat Race Day?" said William with interest.
+
+"Yes, same as that. Well, you've got to think of some fault you'd like
+to cure and start to-morrow."
+
+William pondered.
+
+"Can't think of anything," he said at last. "You think of something for
+me."
+
+"You might take one to do your school work properly," he suggested.
+
+William shook his head.
+
+"No," he said, "that wun't be much fun, would it? Crumbs! It _wun't_!"
+
+"Or--to keep your clothes tidy?" went on his friend.
+
+William shuddered at the thought.
+
+"Or to--give up shouting and whistling."
+
+Williams crammed two more sweets into his mouth and shook his head very
+firmly.
+
+"Crumbs, no!" he ejaculated indistinctly.
+
+"Or to be perlite."
+
+"Perlite?"
+
+"Yes. 'Please' and 'thank you,' and 'if you don't mind me sayin' so,'
+and 'if you excuse me contradictin' of you,' and 'can I do anything for
+you?' and such like."
+
+William was struck with this.
+
+"Yes, I might be that," he said. He straightened his collar and stood
+up. "Yes, I might try bein' that. How long has it to go on, though?"
+
+"Not long," said Mr. Moss. "Only the first day gen'rally. Folks
+generally give 'em up after that."
+
+"What's yours?" said William, putting four sweets into his mouth as he
+spoke.
+
+Mr. Moss looked round his little shop with the air of a conspirator,
+then leant forward confidentially.
+
+"I'm goin' to arsk 'er again," he said.
+
+"Who?" said William mystified.
+
+"Someone I've arsked regl'ar every New Year's Day for ten year."
+
+"Asked what?" said William, gazing sadly at his last sweet.
+
+"Arsked to take me o' course," said Mr. Moss with an air of contempt for
+William's want of intelligence.
+
+"Take you where?" said William. "Where d'you want to go? Why can't you
+go yourself?"
+
+"Ter _marry_ me, I means," said Mr. Moss, blushing slightly as he spoke.
+
+"Well," said William with a judicial air, "I wun't have asked the same
+one for ten years. I'd have tried someone else. I'd have gone on asking
+other people, if I wanted to get married. You'd be sure to find someone
+that wouldn't mind you--with a sweet-shop, too. She must be a softie.
+Does she _know_ you've got a sweet-shop?"
+
+Mr. Moss merely sighed and popped a bull's eye into his mouth with an
+air of abstracted melancholy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning William leapt out of bed with an expression of stern
+resolve. "I'm goin' to be p'lite," he remarked to his bedroom furniture.
+"I'm goin' to be p'lite all day."
+
+He met his father on the stairs as he went down to breakfast.
+
+"Good mornin', Father," he said, with what he fondly imagined to be a
+courtly manner. "Can I do anything for you to-day?"
+
+His father looked down at him suspiciously.
+
+"What do you want now?" he demanded.
+
+William was hurt.
+
+[Illustration: "GOOD MORNIN', FATHER," SAID WILLIAM WITH WHAT HE FONDLY
+IMAGINED TO BE A COURTLY MANNER.]
+
+"I'm only bein' p'lite. It's--you know--one of those things you take
+on New Year's Day. Well, I've took one to be p'lite."
+
+His father apologised. "I'm sorry," he said. "You see, I'm not used to
+it. It startled me."
+
+At breakfast William's politeness shone forth in all its glory.
+
+"Can I pass you anything, Robert?" he said sweetly.
+
+His elder brother coldly ignored him. "Going to rain again," he said to
+the world in general.
+
+"If you'll 'scuse me contradicting of you Robert," said William, "I
+heard the milkman sayin' it was goin' to be fine. If you'll 'scuse me
+contradictin' you."
+
+"Look here!" said Robert angrily, "Less of your cheek!"
+
+"Seems to me no one in this house understands wot bein' p'lite is," said
+William bitterly. "Seems to me one might go on bein' p'lite in this
+house for years an' no one know wot one was doin'."
+
+His mother looked at him anxiously.
+
+"You're feeling quite well, dear, aren't you?" she said. "You haven't
+got a headache or anything, have you?"
+
+"No. I'm bein' _p'lite_," he said irritably, then pulled himself up
+suddenly. "I'm quite well, thank you, Mother dear," he said in a tone of
+cloying sweetness.
+
+"Does it hurt you much?" inquired his brother tenderly.
+
+"No thank you, Robert," said William politely.
+
+After breakfast he received his pocket-money with courteous gratitude.
+
+"Thank you very much, Father."
+
+"Not at all. Pray don't mention it, William. It's quite all right," said
+Mr. Brown, not to be outdone. Then, "It's rather trying. How long does
+it last?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The resolution."
+
+"Oh, bein' p'lite! He said they didn't often do it after the first day."
+
+"He's quite right, whoever he is," said Mr. Brown. "They don't."
+
+"He's goin' to ask her again," volunteered William.
+
+"Who ask who what?" said Mr. Brown, but William had departed. He was
+already on his way to Mr. Moss's shop.
+
+Mr. Moss was at the door, hatted and coated, and gazing anxiously down
+the street.
+
+"Goo' mornin' Mr. Moss," said William politely.
+
+Mr. Moss took out a large antique watch.
+
+"He's late!" he said. "I shall miss the train. Oh, dear! It will be the
+first New Year's Day I've missed in ten years."
+
+William was inspecting the sweets with the air of an expert.
+
+"Them pink ones are new," he said at last. "How much are they?"
+
+"Eightpence a quarter. Oh, dear, I shall miss the train."
+
+"They're very small ones," said William disparagingly "You'd think
+they'd be less than that--small ones like that."
+
+"Will you--will you do something for me and I'll _give_ you a quarter of
+those sweets."
+
+William gasped. The offer was almost too munificent to be true.
+
+"I'll do _anythin'_ for that," he said simply.
+
+"Well, just stay in the shop till my nephew Bill comes. 'E'll be 'ere in
+two shakes an' I'll miss my train if I don't go now. 'E's goin' to keep
+the shop for me till I'm back an' 'e'll be 'ere any minute now. Jus'
+tell 'im I 'ad to run for to catch my train an' if anyone comes into the
+shop before 'e comes jus' tell 'em to wait or to come back later. You
+can weigh yourself a quarter o' those sweets."
+
+Mr. Moss was certainly in a holiday mood. William pinched himself just
+to make sure that he was still alive and had not been translated
+suddenly to the realms of the blest.
+
+Mr. Moss, with a last anxious glance at his watch, hurried off in the
+direction of the station.
+
+William was left alone. He spent a few moments indulging in roseate day
+dreams. The ideal of his childhood--perhaps of everyone's childhood--was
+realised. He had a sweet-shop. He walked round the shop with a conscious
+swagger, pausing to pop into his mouth a Butter Ball--composed, as the
+label stated, of pure farm cream and best butter. It was all his--all
+those rows and rows of gleaming bottles of sweets of every size and
+colour, those boxes and boxes of attractively arranged chocolates.
+Deliberately he imagined himself as their owner. By the time he had
+walked round the shop three times he believed that he was the owner.
+
+At this point a small boy appeared in the doorway. William scowled at
+him.
+
+"Well," he said ungraciously, "what d'you want?" Then, suddenly
+remembering his resolution, "_Please_ what d'you want?"
+
+"Where's Uncle?" said the small boy with equal ungraciousness. "'Cause
+our Bill's ill an' can't come."
+
+William waved him off.
+
+"That's all right," he said. "You tell 'em that's all right. That's
+quite all right. See? Now, you go off!"
+
+The small boy stood, as though rooted to the spot. William pressed into
+one of his hands a stick of liquorice and into the other a packet of
+chocolate.
+
+"Now, you go _away_! I don't _want_ you here. See? You _go away_ you
+little--assified cow!"
+
+William's invective was often wholly original.
+
+The small boy made off, still staring and clutching his spoils. William
+started to the door and yelled to the retreating figure, "if you don't
+mind me sayin' so."
+
+He had already come to look upon the Resolution as a kind of god who
+must at all costs be propitiated. Already the Resolution seemed to have
+bestowed upon him the dream of his life--a fully-equipped sweet-shop.
+
+He wandered round again and discovered a wholly new sweetmeat called
+Cokernut Kisses. Its only drawback was its instability. It melted away
+in the mouth at once. So much so that almost before William was aware of
+it he was confronted by the empty box. He returned to the more solid
+charms of the Pineapple Crisp.
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of a thin lady of uncertain age.
+
+"Good morning," she said icily. "Where's Mr. Moss?"
+
+William answered as well as the presence of five sweets in his mouth
+would allow him.
+
+"I can't hear a word you say," she said--more frigidly than ever.
+
+William removed two of his five sweets and placed them temporarily on
+the scale.
+
+"Gone," he said laconically, then murmured vaguely, "thank you," as the
+thought of the Resolution loomed up in his mind.
+
+"Who's in charge?"
+
+"Me," said William ungrammatically.
+
+She looked at him with distinct disapproval.
+
+"Well, I'll have one of those bars of chocolates."
+
+William looking round the shop, realised suddenly that his own
+depredations had been on no small scale. But there was a chance of
+making good any loss that Mr. Moss might otherwise have sustained.
+
+He looked down at the twopenny bars.
+
+"Shillin' each," he said firmly.
+
+She gasped.
+
+"They were only twopence yesterday."
+
+"They're gone up since," said William brazenly, adding a vague, "if
+you'll kin'ly 'scuse me sayin' so."
+
+"Gone up----?" she repeated indignantly.
+
+"Have you heard from the makers they're gone up?"
+
+"Yes'm," said William politely.
+
+"When did you hear?"
+
+"This mornin'--if you don't mind me saying so."
+
+William's manner of fulsome politeness seemed to madden her.
+
+"Did you hear by post?"
+
+"Yes'm. By post this mornin'."
+
+She glared at him with vindictive triumph.
+
+"I happen to live opposite, you wicked, lying boy, and I know that the
+postman did not call here this morning."
+
+William met her eye calmly.
+
+"No, they came round to see me in the night--the makers did. You cou'n't
+of heard them," he added hastily. "It was when you was asleep. If you'll
+'scuse me contradictin' of you."
+
+It is a great gift to be able to lie so as to convince other people. It
+is a still greater gift to be able to lie so as to convince oneself.
+William was possessed of the latter gift.
+
+"I shall certainly not pay more than twopence," said his customer
+severely, taking a bar of chocolate and laying down twopence on the
+counter. "And I shall report this shop to the Profiteering Committee.
+It's scandalous. And a pack of wicked lies!"
+
+William scowled at her.
+
+"They're a _shillin'_," he said. "I don't want your nasty ole tuppences.
+I said they was a _shillin'_."
+
+He followed her to the door. She was crossing the street to her house.
+"You--you ole _thief_!" he yelled after her, though, true to his
+Resolution, he added softly with dogged determination, "if you don't
+mind me sayin' so."
+
+"I'll set the police on you," his late customer shouted angrily back
+across the street. "You wicked, blasphemous boy!"
+
+William put out his tongue at her, then returned to the shop and closed
+the door.
+
+Here he discovered that the door, when opened, rang a bell, and, after
+filling his mouth with Liquorice All Sorts, he spent the next five
+minutes vigorously opening and shutting the door till something went
+wrong with the mechanism of the bell. At this he fortified himself with
+a course of Nutty Footballs and, standing on a chair, began ruthlessly
+to dismember the bell. He was disturbed by the entry of another
+customer. Swallowing a Nutty Football whole, he hastened to his post
+behind the counter.
+
+The newcomer was a little girl of about nine--a very dainty little girl,
+dressed in a white fur coat and cap and long white gaiters. Her hair
+fell in golden curls over her white fur shoulders. Her eyes were blue.
+Her cheeks were velvety and rosy. Her mouth was like a baby's. William
+had seen this vision on various occasions in the town, but had never yet
+addressed it. Whenever he had seen it, his heart in the midst of his
+body had been even as melting wax. He smiled--a self-conscious, sheepish
+smile. His freckled face blushed to the roots of his short stubby hair.
+She seemed to find nothing odd in the fact of a small boy being in
+charge of a sweet-shop. She came up to the counter.
+
+"Please, I want two twopenny bars of chocolate."
+
+Her voice was very clear and silvery.
+
+Ecstasy rendered William speechless. His smile grew wider and more
+foolish. Seeing his two half-sucked Pineapple Crisps exposed upon the
+scales, he hastily put them into his mouth.
+
+She laid four pennies on the counter.
+
+William found his voice.
+
+"You can have lots for that," he said huskily. "They've gone cheap.
+They've gone ever so cheap. You can take all the boxful for that," he
+went on recklessly. He pressed the box into her reluctant hands.
+"An'--what else would you like? You jus' tell me that. Tell me what else
+you'd like?"
+
+"Please, I haven't any more money," gasped a small, bewildered voice.
+
+"_Money_ don't matter," said William. "Things is cheap to-day. Things is
+awful cheap to-day. _Awful_ cheap! You can have--anythin' you like for
+that fourpence. Anythin' you like."
+
+"'Cause it's New Year's Day?" said the vision, with a gleam of
+understanding.
+
+"Yes," said William, "'cause it's that."
+
+"Is it your shop?"
+
+"Yes," said William with an air of importance. "It's all my shop."
+
+She gazed at him in admiration and envy.
+
+"I'd love to have a sweet-shop," she said wistfully.
+
+"Well, you take anythin' you like," said William generously.
+
+She collected as much as she could carry and started towards the door.
+"_Sank_ you! Sank you ever so!" she said gratefully.
+
+William stood leaning against the door in the easy attitude of the
+good-natured, all-providing male.
+
+"It's all right," he said with an indulgent smile. "Quite all right.
+Quite all right." Then, with an inspiration born of memories of his
+father earlier in the day. "Not at all. Don't menshun it. Not at all.
+Quite all right."
+
+[Illustration: "_MONEY_ DON'T MATTER," SAID WILLIAM. "THINGS IS CHEAP
+TO-DAY. AWFUL CHEAP!"]
+
+He stopped, simply for lack of further expressions, and bowed with
+would-be gracefulness as she went through the doorway.
+
+As she passed the window she was rewarded by a spreading effusive smile
+in a flushed face.
+
+She stopped and kissed her hand.
+
+William blinked with pure emotion.
+
+He continued his smile long after its recipient had disappeared. Then
+absent-mindedly he crammed his mouth with a handful of Mixed Dew Drops
+and sat down behind the counter.
+
+As he crunched Mixed Dew Drops he indulged in a day dream in which he
+rescued the little girl in the white fur coat from robbers and pirates
+and a burning house. He was just leaping nimbly from the roof of the
+burning house, holding the little girl in the white fur coat in his
+arms, when he caught sight of two of his friends flattening their noses
+at the window. He rose from his seat and went to the door.
+
+"'Ullo, Ginger! 'Ullo, Henry!" he said with an unsuccessful effort to
+appear void of self-consciousness.
+
+They gazed at him in wonder.
+
+"I've gotta shop," he went on casually. "Come on in an' look at it."
+
+They peeped round the door-way cautiously and, reassured by the sight of
+William obviously in sole possession, they entered, openmouthed. They
+gazed at the boxes and bottles of sweets. Aladdin's Cave was nothing to
+this.
+
+"Howd' you get it, William?" gasped Ginger.
+
+"Someone gave it me," said William. "I took one of them things to be
+p'lite an' someone gave it me. Go on," he said kindly. "Jus' help
+yourselves. Not at all. Jus' help yourselves an' don't menshun it."
+
+They needed no second bidding. With the unerring instinct of childhood
+(not unsupported by experience) that at any minute their Eden might be
+invaded by the avenging angel in the shape of a grown-up, they made full
+use of their time. They went from box to box, putting handfuls of sweets
+and chocolates into their mouths. They said nothing, simply because
+speech was, under the circumstances, a physical impossibility. Showing a
+foresight for the future, worthy of the noble ant itself, so often held
+up as a model to childhood, they filled pockets in the intervals of
+cramming their mouths.
+
+A close observer might have noticed that William now ate little. William
+himself had been conscious for some time of a curious and inexplicable
+feeling of coldness towards the tempting dainties around him. He was,
+however, loth to give in to the weakness, and every now and then he
+nonchalantly put into his mouth a Toasted Square or a Fruity Bit.
+
+It happened that a loutish boy of about fourteen was passing the shop.
+At the sight of three small boys rapidly consuming the contents, he
+became interested.
+
+"What yer doin' of?" he said indignantly, standing in the doorway.
+
+"You get out of my shop," said William valiantly.
+
+"_Yer_ shop?" said the boy. "Yer bloomin' well pinchin' things out o'
+someone else's shop, _I_ can see. 'Ere, gimme some of them."
+
+"You get _out_!" said William.
+
+"Get out _yerself_!" said the other.
+
+"If I'd not took one to be p'lite," said William threateningly, "I'd
+knock you down."
+
+"Yer would, would yer?" said the other, beginning to roll up his
+sleeves.
+
+"Yes, an' I would, too. You get out." Seizing the nearest bottle, which
+happened to contain Acid Drops, he began to fire them at his opponent's
+head. One hit him in the eye. He retired into the street. William, now
+a-fire for battle, followed him, still hurling Acid Drops with all his
+might. A crowd of boys collected together. Some gathered Acid Drops from
+the gutter, others joined the scrimmage. William, Henry, and Ginger
+carried on a noble fight against heavy odds.
+
+It was only the sight of the proprietor of the shop coming briskly down
+the side-walk that put an end to the battle. The street boys made off
+(with what spoils they could gather) in one direction and Ginger and
+Henry in another. William, clasping an empty Acid Drop bottle to his
+bosom, was left to face Mr. Moss.
+
+Mr. Moss entered and looked round with an air of bewilderment.
+
+"Where's Bill?" he said.
+
+"He's ill," said William. "He couldn't come. I've been keepin' shop for
+you. I've done the best I could." He looked round the rifled shop and
+hastened to propitiate the owner as far as possible. "I've got some
+money for you," he added soothingly, pointing to the four pennies that
+represented his morning's takings. "It's not much," he went on with
+some truth, looking again at the rows of emptied boxes and half-emptied
+bottles and the _debris_ that is always and everywhere the inevitable
+result of a battle. But Mr. Moss hardly seemed to notice it.
+
+"Thanks, William," he said almost humbly. "William, she's took me. She's
+goin' ter marry me. Isn't it grand? After all these years!"
+
+"I'm afraid there's a bit of a mess," said William, returning to the
+more important matter.
+
+Mr. Moss waved aside his apologies.
+
+"It doesn't matter, William," he said. "Nothing matters to-day. She's
+took me at last. I'm goin' to shut shop this afternoon and go over to
+her again. Thanks for staying, William."
+
+"Not at all. Don't menshun it," said William nobly. Then, "I think I've
+had enough of that bein' p'lite. Will one mornin' do for this year,
+d'you think?"
+
+"Er--yes. Well, I'll shut up. Don't you stay, William. You'll want to be
+getting home for lunch."
+
+Lunch? Quite definitely William decided that he did not want any lunch.
+The very thought of lunch brought with it a feeling of active physical
+discomfort which was much more than mere absence of hunger. He decided
+to go home as quickly as possible, though not to lunch.
+
+"Goo'-bye," he said.
+
+"Good-bye," said Mr. Moss.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll find some things gone," said William faintly; "some
+boys was in."
+
+"That's all right, William," said Mr. Moss, roused again from his rosy
+dreams. "That's quite all right."
+
+But it was not "quite all right" with William. Reader, if you had been
+left, at the age of eleven, in sole charge of a sweet shop for a whole
+morning, would it have been "all right" with you? I trow not. But we
+will not follow William through the humiliating hours of the afternoon.
+We will leave him as, pale and unsteady, but as yet master of the
+situation, he wends his homeward way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE BEST LAID PLANS
+
+
+I
+
+"She's--she's a real Botticelli," said the young man dreamily, as he
+watched the figure of William's sister, Ethel, disappearing into the
+distance.
+
+William glared at him.
+
+"Bottled cherry yourself!" he said indignantly. "She can't help having
+red hair, can she? No more'n you can help havin'--havin'----" his eye
+wandered speculatively over the young man in search of physical
+defects--"having big ears," he ended.
+
+The young man did not resent the insult. He did not even hear it. His
+eyes were still fixed upon the slim figure in the distance.
+
+"'Eyes of blue and hair red-gold,'" he said softly. "Red-gold. I had to
+put that because it's got both colours in it. Red-gold, 'Eyes of blue
+and hair red-gold.' What rhymes with gold?"
+
+"Cold," suggested William brightly. "That's jolly good, too, 'cause she
+has gotter cold. She was sneezing all last night."
+
+"No. It should be something about her heart being cold.
+
+    "_Eyes of blue and hair red-gold,_
+    _Heart of ice--so stony cold----_"
+
+"That's jolly good!" said William with admiration. "It's just like what
+you read in real books--poetry books!"
+
+The young man--James French by name--had met Ethel at an evening party
+and had succumbed to her charm. Lacking courage to pursue the
+acquaintance, he had cultivated the friendship of her small brother,
+under a quite erroneous impression that this would win him her good
+graces.
+
+"What would you like most in the world?" he said suddenly, leaning
+forward from his seat on the top of the gate. "Suppose someone let you
+choose."
+
+"White rats," said William without a moment's hesitation.
+
+The young man was plunged in deep thought.
+
+"I'm thinking a way," he said at last. "I've nearly got it. Just walk
+home with me, will you? I'll give you something when we get there," he
+bribed with pathetic pleading, noting William's reluctant face. "I want
+to tell you my idea."
+
+They walked down the lane together. The young man talked volubly and
+earnestly. William's mouth opened wide with amazement and disapproving
+horror. The words "white rats" were repeated frequently. Finally William
+nodded his head, as though acquiescing.
+
+"I s'pose you're balmy on her," he said resignedly at the end, "like
+what folks are in books. I want 'em with long tails, mind."
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE MOST IN THE WORLD?" HE SAID
+SUDDENLY. "WHITE RATS!" SAID WILLIAM WITHOUT A MOMENT'S HESITATION.]
+
+William was not unacquainted with the tender passion. He had been to the
+pictures. He had read books. He had seen his elder brother Robert pass
+several times through every stage of the consuming fever. He had himself
+decided in moments of deep emotion to marry the little girl next door as
+soon as he should reach manhood's estate. He was willing to further his
+new friend's suit by every legitimate means, but he was rather aghast at
+the means suggested. Still--white rats were white rats.
+
+The next morning William assumed his expression of shining virtue--the
+expression he reserved for special occasions.
+
+"You goin' shoppin' this mornin'?" he inquired politely of Ethel.
+
+"You know I am," said Ethel shortly.
+
+"Shall I come with you to carry parcels an' things?" said William
+unctuously.
+
+Ethel looked at him with sudden suspicion.
+
+"What do you want?" she said. "I'm not going to buy you anything."
+
+William looked pained.
+
+"I don't want anything," he said. "I jus' want to _help_ you, that's
+all. I jus' want to carry your parcels for you. I--I jus' don't want you
+to get tired, that's all."
+
+"All right." Ethel was still suspicious. "You can come and you can carry
+parcels, but you won't get a penny out of me."
+
+They walked down together to the shops, and William meekly allowed
+himself to be laden with many parcels. Ethel's grim suspicion passed
+into bewilderment as he passed toyshop after toyshop without a glance.
+In imagination he was already teaching complicated tricks to a pair of
+white rats.
+
+"It's--it's awfully decent of you, William," said Ethel, at last, almost
+persuaded that she had misjudged William for the greater part of his
+life. "Do you feel all right? I mean, you don't feel ill or anything, do
+you?"
+
+"No," he said absently, then corrected himself hastily. "At least, not
+_jus'_ now. I feel all right jus' _now_. I feel as if I might not feel
+all right soon, but I don't know."
+
+Ethel looked anxious.
+
+"Let's get home quickly. What have you been eating?"
+
+"Nothing," said William indignantly. "It's not that sort of not well.
+It's quite diff'rent."
+
+"What sort is it?"
+
+"It's nuffin'--not jus' now. I'm all right jus' now."
+
+They walked in silence till they had left the road behind and had turned
+off to the long country road that led to William's house. Then, slowly
+and deliberately, still clasping his burden of parcels, William sat down
+on the ground.
+
+"I can't walk any more, Ethel," he said, turning his healthy countenance
+up to her. "I'm took ill sudden."
+
+She looked down at him impatiently.
+
+"Don't be absurd, William," she said. "Get up."
+
+"I'm not absurd," he said firmly. "I'm took ill."
+
+"Where do you feel ill?"
+
+"All over," he said guardedly.
+
+"Does your ankle hurt?"
+
+"Yes--an' my knees an' all up me. I jus' can't walk. I'm took too ill to
+walk."
+
+She looked round anxiously.
+
+"Oh, what _are_ we going to do? It's a quarter of a mile home!"
+
+At that moment there appeared the figure of a tall young man. He drew
+nearer and raised his hat.
+
+"Anything wrong, Miss Brown?" he said, blushing deeply.
+
+"Just _look_ at William!" said Ethel, pointing dramatically at the small
+figure seated comfortably in the dust of the road. "He says he can't
+walk, and goodness knows what we're going to do."
+
+The young man bent over William, but avoided meeting his eyes.
+
+"You feeling ill, my little man?" he said cheerfully.
+
+"Huh!" snorted William. "That's a nice thing for _you_ to ask when you
+know you told me----"
+
+The young man coughed long and loud.
+
+"All right," he said hastily. "Well, let's see what we can do. Could you
+get on my back, and then I can carry you home? Give me your parcels.
+That's right. No, Miss Brown. I _insist_ on carrying the parcels. I
+couldn't _dream_ of allowing you--well, if you're _sure_ you'd rather.
+Leave me the big ones, anyway. Now, William, are we ready?"
+
+[Illustration: "I CAN'T WALK ANY MORE, ETHEL," HE SAID, TURNING HIS
+HEALTHY COUNTENANCE UP TO HER. "I'M TOOK ILL SUDDEN!"]
+
+William clung on behind, nothing loth, and they set off rather slowly
+down the road. Ethel was overcome with gratitude.
+
+"It _is_ kind of you, Mr. French. I don't know what we should have done
+without you. I do hope he's not fearfully heavy, and I do hope he's not
+beginning anything infectious. Do let me take the other parcels. Won't
+you, really? Mother _will_ be grateful to you. It's such a strange
+thing, isn't it? I've never heard of such a thing before. I've always
+thought William was so strong. I hope it's not consumption or anything
+like that. How does consumption begin?"
+
+Mr. French had had no conception of the average weight of a sturdy small
+boy of eleven. He stumbled along unsteadily.
+
+"Oh, no," he panted. "Don't mention it--don't mention it. It's a
+pleasure--really it is. No, indeed you mustn't take the parcels. You
+have quite enough already. Quite enough. No, he isn't a bit heavy. Not a
+bit. I'm so glad I happened to come by at a moment that I could do you a
+service. _So_ glad!" He paused to mop his brow. He was breathing very
+heavily. There was a violent and quite unreasonable hatred of William at
+his heart.
+
+"Don't you think you could walk now--just a bit, William?" he said, with
+a touch of exasperation in his panting voice. "I'll help you walk."
+
+"All right," William acceded readily. "I don't mind. I'll lean on you
+hard, shall I?"
+
+"Do you feel well enough?" said Ethel anxiously.
+
+"Oh, yes. I can walk now, if he wants--I mean if he doesn't mind me
+holding on to his arm. I feel as if I was goin' to be _quite_ all right
+soon. I'm nearly all right now."
+
+The three of them walked slowly up the drive to the Brown's house,
+William leaning heavily on the young man's arm. Mrs. Brown saw them from
+the window and ran to the door.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she said. "You've run over him on your motor-cycle. I knew
+you'd run over somebody soon. I said when I saw you passing on it
+yesterday----"
+
+Ethel interrupted indignantly.
+
+"Why, Mother, Mr. French has been so kind. I can't think what I'd have
+done without him. William was taken ill and couldn't walk, and Mr.
+French has carried him all the way from the other end of the road, on
+his back."
+
+"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry! How very kind of you, Mr. French. Do come in and
+stay to lunch. William, go upstairs to bed at once and I'll ring up Dr.
+Ware."
+
+"No," said William firmly. "Don't bother poor Dr. Ware. I'm all right
+now. Honest I am. He'd be mad to come and find me all right."
+
+"Of course you must see a doctor."
+
+"No, I _mustn't_. You don't understand. It wasn't that kind of not
+wellness. A doctor couldn't of done me no good. I jus'--jus' came over
+queer," he ended, remembering a phrase he had heard used recently by the
+charwoman.
+
+"What do you think, Mr. French?" said Mrs. Brown anxiously.
+
+Both Mrs. Brown and Ethel turned to him as to an oracle. He looked from
+one to the other and a deep flush of guilt overspread his countenance.
+
+"Oh--er--well," he said nervously. "He _looks_ all right, doesn't he?
+I--er--wouldn't bother. Just--er--don't worry him with questions.
+Just--let him go about as usual. I--er--think it's best to--let him
+forget it," he ended weakly.
+
+"Of course he's growing very fast."
+
+"Yes. I expect it was just a sort of growing weakness," said Mr. French
+brightly.
+
+"But Mr. French was _splendid_!" said Ethel enthusiastically, "simply
+splendid. William, I don't think you realise how kind it was of Mr.
+French. I think you ought to thank him."
+
+William fixed his benefactor with a cold eye.
+
+"Thank you very much indeed for carrying me," he said. Then, as his
+mother turned to Ethel with a remark about the lunch, he added. "_Two_,
+remember, and, with long tails!"
+
+Mr. French stayed for lunch and spent the afternoon golfing with Ethel
+up at the links. William was wrapt up in rugs and laid upon the library
+sofa after lunch and left to sleep off his mysterious complaint in
+quietness with the blinds down.
+
+Mrs. Brown, entering on tiptoe to see how her son was faring, found him
+gone.
+
+"Oh, he's gone," she said anxiously to her husband. "I left him so
+comfortable on the sofa, and told him to try to sleep. Sleep is so
+important when you're ill. And now he's gone--he'll probably stay away
+till bedtime!"
+
+"All right," said her husband sardonically. "Be thankful for small
+mercies."
+
+Ethel and her esquire returned to tea, and, yielding to the entreaties
+of the family, who looked upon him as William's saviour, he stayed to
+dinner. He spent the evening playing inadequate accompaniments to
+Ethel's songs and ejaculating at intervals rapturous expressions of
+delight. It was evident that Ethel was flattered by his obvious
+admiration. He stayed till nearly eleven, and then, almost drunk with
+happiness, he took his leave while the family again thanked him
+profusely.
+
+As he walked down the drive with a smile on his lips and his mind
+flitting among the blissful memories of the evening, an upper window was
+opened cautiously and a small head peeped out. Through the still air the
+words shot out----
+
+"_Two_, mind, an' with long tails."
+
+
+II
+
+"Where did you get it from?" demanded Mr. Brown fiercely.
+
+William pocketed his straying pet.
+
+"A friend gave it me."
+
+"_What_ friend?"
+
+"Mr. French. The man what carried me when I was took ill sudden. He gave
+me it. I di'n't know it was goin' to go into your slipper. I wun't of
+let it if I'd known. An' I di'n't know it was goin' to bite your toe. It
+di'n't mean to bite your toe. I 'spect it thought it was me givin' it
+sumthin' to eat. I expect----"
+
+"Be _quiet_! What on earth did Mr. French give you the confounded thing
+for?"
+
+"I dunno. I s'pect he jus' wanted to."
+
+"He seems to have taken quite a fancy to William," said Mrs. Brown.
+
+Ethel blushed faintly.
+
+"He seems to have taken a spite against me," said Mr. Brown bitterly.
+"How many of the wretched pests have you got?"
+
+"They're rats," corrected William, "White 'uns. I've only got two."
+
+"Good Heavens! He's got _two_. Where's the other?"
+
+"In the shed."
+
+"Well, _keep_ it there, do you hear? And this savage brute as well. Good
+Lord! My toe's nearly eaten off. They ought to wear muzzles; they've got
+rabies. Where's Jumble? He in the shed, too?" hopefully.
+
+"No. He dun't like 'em. But I'm tryin' to _teach_ him to like 'em. I let
+'em loose and let him look at 'em with me holdin' on to him."
+
+"Yes, go on doing that," said Mr. Brown encouragingly. "Accidents
+sometimes happen."
+
+That night William obeyed the letter of the law by keeping the rats in a
+box on his bedroom window-sill.
+
+The household was roused in the early hours of the morning by piercing
+screams from Ethel's room. The more adventurous of the pair--named
+Rufus--had escaped from the box and descended to Ethel's room by way of
+the creeper. Ethel awoke suddenly to find it seated on her pillow softly
+pawing her hair. The household, in their various sleeping attire,
+flocked to her room at the screams. Ethel was hysterical. They fed her
+on hot tea and biscuits to steady her nerves. "It was _horrible_!" she
+said. "It was pulling at my hair. It just sat there with its pink nose
+and long tail. It was perfectly _horrible_!"
+
+[Illustration: MR. BROWN IN LARGE PYJAMAS LOOKED FIERCELY DOWN AT
+WILLIAM IN SMALL PYJAMAS.]
+
+"Where _is_ the wretched animal?" said Mr. Brown looking round with
+murder in his eyes.
+
+"I've got it, Father," piped up William's small voice at the back of the
+crowd. "Ethel di'n't understand. It was playin' with her. It di'n't mean
+to frighten her. It----"
+
+"I told you not to keep them in the house."
+
+Mr. Brown in large pyjamas looked fiercely down at William in small
+pyjamas with the cause of all the tumult clasped lovingly to his breast.
+Ethel, in bed, continued to gasp weakly in the intervals of drinking
+tea.
+
+"They weren't in the house," said William firmly. "They were outside the
+window. Right outside the window. Right on the sill. You can't call
+outside the window in the house, can you? I _put_ it outside the house.
+I can't help it _comin'_ inside the house when I'm asleep, can I?"
+
+Mr. Brown eyed his son solemnly.
+
+"The next time I catch either of those animals inside this house,
+William," he said slowly, "I'll wring its neck."
+
+When Mr. French called the next afternoon, he felt that his popularity
+had declined.
+
+"I can't think why you gave William such dreadful things," Ethel said
+weakly, lying on the sofa. "I feel quite upset. I've got such a headache
+and my nerves are a wreck absolutely."
+
+Mr. French worked hard that afternoon and evening to regain his lost
+ground. He sat by the sofa and talked in low tones. He read aloud to
+her. He was sympathetic, penitent, humble and devoted. In spite of all
+his efforts, however, he felt that his old prestige was gone. He was no
+longer the Man Who Carried William Home. He was the Man Who Gave
+William the Rat. He felt that, in the eyes of the Brown household, he
+was solely responsible for Ethel's collapse. There was reproach even in
+the eyes of the housemaid who showed him out. In the drive he met
+William. William was holding a grimy, blood-stained handkerchief round
+his finger. There was reproach in William's eyes also. "It's bit me," he
+said indignantly. "One of those rats what you gave me's bit me."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. French penitently. Then, with sudden
+spirit, "Well, you asked for rats, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," said William. "But not savage ones. I never asked for savage
+ones, did I? I di'n't ask for rats what would scare Ethel and bite me,
+did I? I was jus' teaching it to dance on its hind legs an' holding up
+its front ones for it an' it went an' bit me."
+
+Mr. French looked at him apprehensively.
+
+"You--you'd better not--er--tell your mother or sister about your
+finger. I--I wouldn't like your sister to be upset any more."
+
+"Don't you want me to let 'em know?"
+
+"Er--no."
+
+"Well, what'll you give me not to?" said William brazenly.
+
+Mr. French plunged his hand into his pocket.
+
+"I'll give you half-a-crown," he said.
+
+William pocketed the coin.
+
+"All right!" he said. "If I wash the blood off an' get my hands dirty
+nobody'll notice."
+
+Things went well for several days after that. Mr. French arrived the
+next morning laden with flowers and grapes. The household unbent
+towards him. Ethel arranged a day's golfing with him. William spent a
+blissful day with his half-crown. There was a fair in full swing on the
+fair ground, and thither William and Jumble wended their way. William
+had eleven consecutive rides on the merry-go-round. He had made up his
+mind to have twelve, but, much to his regret, had to relinquish the
+twelfth owing to certain unpleasant physical sensations. With a lordly
+air, he entered seven tents in succession and sat gazing in a silent
+intensity of rapture at the Strong Man, the Fat Woman, the Indiarubber
+Jointed Boy, the Siamese Twins, the Human Eel, the Man-headed Elephant
+and the Talking Monkey. In each tent he stayed, silent and enraptured,
+till ejected by the showman to make room for others who were anxious to
+feast their eyes upon the marvels. Having now completely recovered from
+the sensations caused by the merry-go-round, he purchased a large bag of
+pop-corn and stood leaning against a tent-pole till he had consumed it.
+Then he purchased two sticks of nougat and with it drank two bottles of
+ginger-beer. The remaining 4_d._ was spent upon a large packet of a red
+sticky mixture called Canadian Delight.
+
+Dusk was falling by this time and slowly, very slowly, William returned
+home. He firmly refused all food at supper. Mrs. Brown grew anxious.
+
+"William, you don't look a bit well," she said. "You don't feel like you
+did the other day, do you?"
+
+William met Mr. French's eye across the table and Mr. French blushed.
+
+"No, not a bit like that," said William.
+
+When pressed, he admitted having gone to the fair.
+
+"Someone gave me half-a-crown," he excused himself plaintively. "I jus'
+had to go somewhere."
+
+"It's perfectly absurd of people," said Mrs. Brown indignantly, "to give
+large sums of money to a boy of William's age. It always ends this way.
+People ought to know better."
+
+As they passed out from the supper-table, William whispered hoarsely to
+Mr. French:
+
+"It was the half-crown what you give me."
+
+"Don't tell them," whispered Mr. French desperately.
+
+"What'll you give me not to?"
+
+Furtively Mr. French pressed a two-shilling piece into his hand.
+
+Glorious vistas opened before William's eyes He decided finally that Mr.
+French must join the family. Life then would be an endless succession of
+half-crowns and two-shilling pieces.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and William went to the shed directly after
+breakfast to continue the teaching of Rufus, the dancing rat. Rufus was
+to be taught to dance, the other, now christened Cromwell, was to be
+taught to be friends with Jumble. So far this training had only reached
+the point of Cromwell's sitting motionless in the cage, while in front
+of it William violently restrained the enraged Jumble from murder.
+Still, William thought, if they looked at each other long enough,
+friendship would grow. So they looked at each other each day till
+William's arm ached. As yet friendship had not grown.
+
+"William! It's time for church."
+
+William groaned. That was the worst of Sundays. He was sure that with
+another half-hour's practice Rufus would dance and Cromwell would be
+friends with Jumble. He was a boy not to be daunted by circumstance. He
+put Rufus in his pocket and put the cage containing Cromwell on the top
+of a pile of boxes, leaving Jumble to continue the gaze of friendship
+from the floor.
+
+He walked to church quietly and demurely behind his family, one hand
+clutching his prayer-book, the other in his pocket clasping Rufus. He
+hoped to be able to continue the training during the Litany. He was not
+disappointed. Ethel was on one side of him, and there was no one on the
+other. He knelt down devoutly, one hand shading his face, the other
+firmly holding Rufus's front paws as he walked it round and round on the
+floor. He grew more and more interested in its progress.
+
+"Tell William to kneel up and not to fidget," Mrs. Brown passed down via
+Ethel.
+
+William gave her a virulent glance as he received the message and,
+turning his back on her, continued the dancing lesson.
+
+The Litany passed more quickly than he ever remembered its doing before.
+He replaced the rat in his pocket as they rose for the hymn. It was
+during the hymn that the catastrophe occurred.
+
+The Browns occupied the front seat of the church. While the second verse
+was being sung, the congregation was electrified by the sight of a
+small, long-tailed white creature appearing suddenly upon Mr. Brown's
+shoulder. Ethel's scream almost drowned the organ. Mr. Brown put up his
+hand and the intruder jumped upon his head and stood there for a second,
+digging his claws into his victim's scalp. Mr. Brown turned upon his son
+a purple face that promised future vengeance. The choir turned
+fascinated eyes upon it, and the hymn died away. William's face was a
+mask of horror. Rufus next appeared running along the rim of the pulpit.
+There was a sudden unceremonial exit of most of the female portion of
+the congregation. The clergyman grew pale as Rufus approached and slid
+up his reading-desk. A choir-boy quickly grabbed it, and retired into
+the vestry and thence home before his right to its possession could be
+questioned. William found his voice.
+
+"He's took it," he said in a sibilant whisper. "It's mine! He took it!"
+
+"_Sh!_" said Ethel.
+
+"It's mine," persisted William. "It's what Mr. French give me for being
+took ill that day, you know."
+
+"What?" said Ethel, leaning towards him.
+
+The hymn was in full swing again now.
+
+"He gave it me for being took ill so's he could come and carry me home
+'cause he was gone on you an' it's mine an' that boy's took it an' it
+was jus' gettin' to dance an'----"
+
+"_Sh!_" hissed Mr. Brown violently.
+
+"I shall never look anyone in the face again," lamented Mrs. Brown on
+the way home. "I think _everyone_ was in church! And the way Ethel
+screamed! It was _awful_! I shall dream of it for nights. William, I
+don't know how you _could_!"
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM'S FACE WAS A MASK OF HORROR.]
+
+"Well, it's mine," said William. "That boy'd no business to take it. It
+was gettin' to know _me_. I di'n't _mean_ it to get loose, an' get on
+Father's head an' scare folks. I di'n't mean it to. I meant it to be
+quiet and stay in my pocket. It's mine, anyway, an' that boy took it."
+
+"It's not yours any more, my son," said Mr. Brown firmly.
+
+Ethel walked along with lips tight shut.
+
+In the distance, walking towards them, was a tall, jaunty figure. It was
+Mr. French, who, ignorant of what had happened, was coming gaily on to
+meet them returning from church. He was smiling as he came, secure in
+his reception, composing airy compliments in his mind. As Ethel came on
+he raised his hat with a flourish and beamed at her effusively. Ethel
+walked past him, without a glance and with head high, leaving him,
+aghast and despairing, staring after her down the road. He never saw Mr.
+and Mrs. Brown. William realised the situation. The future half-crowns
+and two-shilling pieces seemed to vanish away. He protested vehemently.
+
+"Ethel, don't get mad at Mr. French. He di'n't mean anything! He only
+wanted to do sumthin' for you 'cause he was mad on you."
+
+"It's _horrible_!" said Ethel. "First you bringing that dreadful animal
+to church, and then I find that he's deceived me and you helped him. I
+hope Father takes the other one away."
+
+"He won't," said William. "He never said anything about that. The
+other's learnin' to be friends with Jumble in the shed. I say, Ethel,
+don't be mad at Mr. French. He----"
+
+"Oh, don't _talk_ about him," said Ethel angrily.
+
+William, who was something of a philosopher, accepted failure, and the
+loss of any riches a future allied with Mr. French might have brought
+him.
+
+"All right!" he said. "Well, I've got the other one left, anyway."
+
+They entered the drive and began to walk up to the front-door. From the
+bushes came a scampering and breaking of twigs as Jumble dashed out to
+greet his master. His demeanour held more than ordinary pleasure: it
+expressed pride and triumph. At his master's feet he laid his proud
+offering--the mangled remains of Cromwell.
+
+William gasped.
+
+"Oh, William!" said Ethel, "I'm so _sorry_."
+
+William assumed an expression of proud, restrained sorrow.
+
+"All right!" he said generously. "It's not your fault really. An' it's
+not Jumble's fault. P'r'aps he thought it was what I was tryin' to teach
+him to do. It's jus' no one's fault. We'll have to bury it." His spirits
+rose. "I'll do the reel buryin' service out of the Prayer Book."
+
+He stood still gazing down at what was left of Jumble's friend. Jumble
+stood by it, proud and pleased, looking up with his head on one side and
+his tail wagging. Sadly William reviewed the downfall of his hopes. Gone
+was Mr. French and all he stood for. Gone was Rufus. Gone was Cromwell.
+He put his hand into his pocket and it came in contact with the
+two-shilling piece.
+
+"Well," he said slowly and philosophically, "I've got _that_ left
+anyway."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"JUMBLE"
+
+
+William's father carefully placed the bow and arrow at the back of the
+library cupboard, then closed the cupboard door and locked it in grim
+silence. William's eyes, large, reproachful, and gloomy, followed every
+movement.
+
+"Three windows and Mrs. Clive's cat all in one morning," began Mr. Brown
+sternly.
+
+"I didn't _mean_ to hit that cat," said William earnestly. "I
+didn't--honest. I wouldn't go round teasin' cats. They get so mad at
+you, cats do. It jus' got in the way. I couldn't stop shootin' in time.
+An' I didn't _mean_ to break those windows. I wasn't _tryin'_ to hit
+them. I've not hit anything I was trying to hit yet," wistfully. "I've
+not got into it. It's jus' a knack. It jus' wants practice."
+
+Mr. Brown pocketed the key.
+
+"It's a knack you aren't likely to acquire by practice on this
+instrument," he said drily.
+
+William wandered out into the garden and looked sadly up at the garden
+wall. But The Little Girl Next Door was away and could offer no
+sympathy, even if he climbed up to his precarious seat on the top. Fate
+was against him in every way. With a deep sigh he went out of the garden
+gate and strolled down the road disconsolately, hands in pockets.
+
+Life stretched empty and uninviting before him without his bow and
+arrow. And Ginger would have his bow and arrow, Henry would have his bow
+and arrow, Douglas would have his bow and arrow. He, William, alone
+would be a thing apart, a social outcast, a boy without a bow and arrow;
+for bows and arrows were the fashion. If only one of the others would
+break a window or hit a silly old cat that hadn't the sense to keep out
+of the way.
+
+He came to a stile leading into a field and took his seat upon it
+dejectedly, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. Life was
+simply not worth living.
+
+"A rotten old cat!" he said aloud, "a rotten old cat!--and didn't even
+hurt it. It--it made a fuss--jus' out of spite, screamin' and carryin'
+on! And windows!--as if glass wasn't cheap enough--and easy to put in. I
+could--I could mend 'em myself--if I'd got the stuff to do it. I----" He
+stopped. Something was coming down the road. It came jauntily with a
+light, dancing step, fox-terrier ears cocked, retriever nose raised,
+collie tail wagging, slightly dachshund body a-quiver with the joy of
+life.
+
+It stopped in front of William with a glad bark of welcome, then stood
+eager, alert, friendly, a mongrel unashamed.
+
+"Rats! Fetch 'em out!" said William idly.
+
+[Illustration: IT STOPPED IN FRONT OF WILLIAM WITH A GLAD BARK OF
+WELCOME.]
+
+It gave a little spring and waited, front paws apart and crouching, a
+waggish eye upraised to William. William broke off a stick from the
+hedge and threw it. His visitor darted after it with a shrill bark, took
+it up, worried it, threw it into the air, caught it, growled at it,
+finally brought it back to William and waited, panting, eager,
+unmistakably grinning, begging for more.
+
+William's drooping spirits revived. He descended from his perch and
+examined its collar. It bore the one word "Jumble."
+
+"Hey! Jumble!" he called, setting off down the road.
+
+Jumble jumped up around him, dashed off, dashed back, worried his boots,
+jumped up at him again in wild, eager friendship, dashed off again,
+begged for another stick, caught it, rolled over with it, growled at it,
+then chewed it up and laid the remains at William's feet.
+
+"Good ole chap!" said William encouragingly. "Good ole Jumble! Come on,
+then."
+
+Jumble came on. William walked through the village with a self-conscious
+air of proud yet careless ownership, while Jumble gambolled round his
+heels.
+
+Every now and then he would turn his head and whistle imperiously, to
+recall his straying _protege_ from the investigation of ditches and
+roadside. It was a whistle, commanding, controlling, yet withal
+careless, that William had sometimes practised privately in readiness
+for the blissful day when Fate should present him with a real live dog
+of his own. So far Fate, in the persons of his father and mother, had
+been proof against all his pleading.
+
+William passed a blissful morning. Jumble swam in the pond, he fetched
+sticks out of it, he shook himself violently all over William, he ran
+after a hen, he was chased by a cat, he barked at a herd of cows, he
+pulled down a curtain that was hanging out in a cottage garden to
+dry--he was mischievous, affectionate, humorous, utterly
+irresistible--and he completely adopted William. William would turn a
+corner with a careless swagger and then watch breathlessly to see if the
+rollicking, frisky little figure would follow, and always it came
+tearing eagerly after him.
+
+William was rather late to lunch. His father and mother and elder
+brother and sister were just beginning the meal. He slipped quietly and
+unostentatiously into his seat. His father was reading a newspaper. Mr.
+Brown always took two daily papers, one of which he perused at breakfast
+and the other at lunch.
+
+"William," said Mrs. Brown, "I do wish you'd be in time, and I do wish
+you'd brush your hair before you come to table."
+
+William raised a hand to perform the operation, but catching sight of
+its colour, hastily lowered it.
+
+"No, Ethel dear, I didn't know anyone had taken Lavender Cottage. An
+artist? How nice! William dear, _do_ sit still. Have they moved in yet?"
+
+"Yes," said Ethel, "they've taken it furnished for two months, I think.
+Oh, my goodness, just _look_ at William's hands!"
+
+William put his hands under the table and glared at her.
+
+"Go and wash your hands, dear," said Mrs. Brown patiently.
+
+For eleven years she had filled the trying position of William's mother.
+It had taught her patience.
+
+William rose reluctantly.
+
+"They're not dirty," he said in a tone of righteous indignation. "Well,
+anyway, they've been dirtier other times and you've said nothin'. I
+can't be _always_ washin' them, can I? Some sorts of hands get dirty
+quicker than others an' if you keep on washin' it only makes them worse
+an'----"
+
+Ethel groaned and William's father lowered his paper. William withdrew
+quickly but with an air of dignity.
+
+"And just _look_ at his boots!" said Ethel as he went. "Simply caked;
+and his stockings are soaking wet--you can see from here. He's been
+right _in_ the pond by the look of him and----"
+
+William heard no more. There were moments when he actively disliked
+Ethel.
+
+He returned a few minutes later, shining with cleanliness, his hair
+brushed back fiercely off his face.
+
+"His _nails_," murmured Ethel as he sat down.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Brown, "go on telling us about the new people.
+William, do hold your knife properly, dear. Yes, Ethel?"
+
+William finished his meal in silence, then brought forth his momentous
+announcement.
+
+"I've gotter dog," he said with an air of importance.
+
+"What sort of a dog?" and "Who gave it to you?" said Robert and Ethel
+simultaneously.
+
+"No one gave it me," he said. "I jus' got it. It began following me this
+morning an' I couldn't get rid of it. It wouldn't go, anyway. It
+followed me all round the village an' it came home with me. I couldn't
+get rid of it, anyhow."
+
+"Where is it now?" said Mrs. Brown anxiously.
+
+"In the back garden."
+
+Mr. Brown folded up his paper.
+
+"Digging up my flower-beds, I suppose," he said with despairing
+resignation.
+
+"He's tied up all right," William reassured him. "I tied him to the tree
+in the middle of the rose-bed."
+
+"The rose-bed!" groaned his father. "Good Lord!"
+
+"Has he had anything to eat?" demanded Robert sternly.
+
+"Yes," said William, avoiding his mother's eye. "I found a few bits of
+old things for him in the larder."
+
+William's father took out his watch and rose from the table.
+
+"Well, you'd better take it to the Police Station this afternoon," he
+said shortly.
+
+"The Police Station!" repeated William hoarsely. "It's not a _lost_ dog.
+It--it jus' doesn't belong to anyone, at least it didn't. Poor thing,"
+feelingly. "It--it doesn't want _much_ to make it happy. It can sleep in
+my room an' jus' eat scraps."
+
+Mr. Brown went out without answering.
+
+"You'll have to take it, you know, William," said Mrs. Brown, "so be
+quick. You know where the Police Station is, don't you? Shall I come
+with you?"
+
+"No, thank you," said William hastily.
+
+A few minutes later he was walking down to the Police Station followed
+by the still eager Jumble, who trotted along, unconscious of his doom.
+
+Upon William's face was a set, stern expression which cleared slightly
+as he neared the Police Station. He stood at the gate and looked at
+Jumble. Jumble placed his front paws ready for a game and wagged his
+tail.
+
+"Well," said William, "here you are. Here's the Police Station."
+
+Jumble gave a shrill bark. "Hurry up with that stick or that race,
+whichever you like," he seemed to say.
+
+"Well, go in," said William, nodding his head in the direction of the
+door.
+
+Jumble began to worry a big stone in the road. He rolled it along with
+his paws, then ran after it with fierce growls.
+
+"Well, it's the Police Station," said William. "Go in if you want."
+
+With that he turned on his heel and walked home, without one backward
+glance. But he walked slowly, with many encouraging "Hey! Jumbles" and
+many short commanding whistles. And Jumble trotted happily at his heels.
+There was no one in the garden, there was no one in the hall, there was
+no one on the stairs. Fate was for once on William's side.
+
+William appeared at the tea-table well washed and brushed, wearing that
+air of ostentatious virtue that those who knew him best connected with
+his most daring coups.
+
+"Did you take that dog to the Police Station, William?" said William's
+father.
+
+William coughed.
+
+[Illustration: JUMBLE TROTTED ALONG UNCONSCIOUS OF HIS DOOM.]
+
+"Yes, father," he said meekly with his eyes upon his plate.
+
+"What did they say about it?"
+
+"Nothing, father."
+
+"I suppose I'd better spend the evening replanting those rose-trees,"
+went on his father bitterly.
+
+"And William gave him a _whole_ steak and kidney pie," murmured Mrs.
+Brown. "Cook will have to make another for to-morrow."
+
+William coughed again politely, but did not raise his eyes from his
+plate.
+
+"What is that noise?" said Ethel. "Listen!"
+
+They sat, listening intently. There was a dull grating sound as of the
+scratching of wood.
+
+"It's upstairs," said Robert with the air of a Sherlock Holmes.
+
+Then came a shrill, impatient bark.
+
+"It's a _dog_!" said the four of them simultaneously. "It's William's
+dog."
+
+They all turned horrified eyes upon William, who coloured slightly but
+continued to eat a piece of cake with an unconvincing air of
+abstraction.
+
+"I thought you said you'd taken that dog to the Police Station,
+William," said Mr. Brown sternly.
+
+"I did," said William with decision. "I did take it to the Police
+Station an' I came home. I s'pose it must of got out an' come home an'
+gone up into my bedroom."
+
+"Where did you leave it? In the Police Station?"
+
+"No--at it--jus' at the gate."
+
+Mr. Brown rose with an air of weariness.
+
+"Robert," he said, "will you please see that that animal goes to the
+Police Station this evening?"
+
+"Yes, father," said Robert, with a vindictive glare at William.
+
+William followed him upstairs.
+
+"Beastly nuisance!" muttered Robert.
+
+Jumble, who was chewing William's door, greeted them ecstatically.
+
+"Look!" said William bitterly. "Look at how it knows one! Nice thing to
+send a dog that knows one like that to the Police Station! Mean sort of
+trick!"
+
+Robert surveyed it coldly.
+
+"Rotten little mongrel!" he said from the heights of superior knowledge.
+
+"Mongrel!" said William indignantly. "There jus' isn't no mongrel about
+_him_. Look at him! An' he can learn tricks easy as easy. Look at him
+sit up and beg. I only taught him this afternoon."
+
+He took a biscuit out of his pocket and held it up. Jumble rose
+unsteadily on to his hind legs and tumbled over backwards. He wagged his
+tail and grinned, intensely amused. Robert's expression of superiority
+relaxed.
+
+"Do it again," he said. "Not so far back. Here! Give it me. Come on,
+come on, old chap! That's it! Now stay there! Stay there! Good dog! Got
+any more? Let's try him again."
+
+During the next twenty minutes they taught him to sit up and almost
+taught him "Trust" and "Paid for." There was certainly a charm about
+Jumble. Even Robert felt it. Then Ethel's voice came up the stairs.
+
+"Robert! Sydney Bellew's come for you."
+
+"Blow the wretched dog!" said the fickle Robert rising, red and
+dishevelled from stooping over Jumble. "We were going to walk to
+Fairfields and the beastly Police Station's right out of our way."
+
+"I'll take it, Robert," said William kindly. "I will really."
+
+Robert eyed him suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, you took it this afternoon, didn't you?"
+
+"I will, honest, to-night, Robert. Well, I couldn't, could I?--after all
+this."
+
+"I don't know," said Robert darkly. "No one ever knows what _you_ are
+going to do!"
+
+Sydney's voice came up.
+
+"Hurry up, old chap! We shall never have time to do it before dark, if
+you aren't quick."
+
+"I'll take him, honest, Robert."
+
+Robert hesitated and was lost.
+
+"Well," he said, "you just mind you do, that's all, or I'll jolly well
+hear about it. I'll see _you_ do too."
+
+So William started off once more towards the Police Station with Jumble,
+still blissfully happy, at his heels. William walked slowly, eyes fixed
+on the ground, brows knit in deep thought. It was very rarely that
+William admitted himself beaten.
+
+"Hello, William!"
+
+William looked up.
+
+Ginger stood before him holding his bow and arrows ostentatiously.
+
+"You've had your bow and arrow took off you!" he jeered.
+
+William fixed his eye moodily upon him for a minute, then very
+gradually his eye brightened and his face cleared. William had an idea.
+
+"If I give you a dog half time," he said slowly, "will you give me your
+bow and arrows half time?"
+
+"Where's your dog?" said Ginger suspiciously.
+
+William did not turn his head.
+
+"There's one behind me, isn't there," he said anxiously. "Hey, Jumble!"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's just come out of the ditch."
+
+"Well," continued William, "I'm taking him to the Police Station and I'm
+just goin' on an' he's following me and if you take him off me I won't
+see you 'cause I won't turn round and jus' take hold of his collar an'
+he's called Jumble an' take him up to the old barn and we'll keep him
+there an' join at him and feed him days and days about and you let me
+practice on your bow and arrow. That's fair, isn't it?"
+
+Ginger considered thoughtfully.
+
+"All right," he said laconically.
+
+William walked on to the Police Station without turning round.
+
+"Well?" whispered Robert sternly that evening.
+
+"I took him, Robert--least--I started off with him, but when I'd got
+there he'd gone. I looked round and he'd jus' gone. I couldn't see him
+anywhere, so I came home."
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM SAT IN THE BARN GAZING DOWN AT JUMBLE.]
+
+"Well, if he comes to this house again," said Robert, "I'll wring his
+neck, so just you look out." Two days later William sat in the barn on
+an upturned box, chin in hands, gazing down at Jumble. A paper bag
+containing Jumble's ration for the day lay beside him. It was his day of
+ownership. The collecting of Jumble's "scraps" was a matter of
+infinite care and trouble. They consisted in--a piece of bread that
+William had managed to slip into his pocket during breakfast, a piece of
+meat he had managed to slip into his pocket during dinner, a jam puff
+stolen from the larder and a bone removed from the dustbin. Ginger
+roamed the fields with his bow and arrow while William revelled in the
+ownership of Jumble. To-morrow William would roam the fields with bow
+and arrow and Ginger would assume ownership of Jumble.
+
+William had spent the morning teaching Jumble several complicated
+tricks, and adoring him more and more completely each moment. He grudged
+him bitterly to Ginger, but--the charm of the bow and arrow was strong.
+He wished to terminate the partnership, to resign Ginger's bow and arrow
+and take the irresistible Jumble wholly to himself. He thought of the
+bow and arrow in the library cupboard; he thought, planned, plotted, but
+could find no way out. He did not see a man come to the door of the barn
+and stand there leaning against the door-post watching him. He was a
+tall man with a thin, lean face and a loose-fitting tweed suit. As his
+eyes lit upon William and Jumble they narrowed suddenly and his mobile
+lips curved into a slight, unconscious smile. Jumble saw him first and
+went towards him wagging his tail. William looked up and scowled
+ungraciously. The stranger raised his hat.
+
+"Good afternoon," he said politely, "Do you remember what you were
+thinking about just then?"
+
+William looked at him with a certain interest, speculating upon his
+probable insanity. He imagined lunatics were amusing people.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, if you'll think of it again and look just like that, I'll give
+you anything you like. It's a rash promise, but I will."
+
+William promptly complied. He quite forgot the presence of the strange
+man, who took a little block out of his pocket and began to sketch
+William's inscrutable, brooding face.
+
+"Daddy!"
+
+The man sighed and put away his block.
+
+"You'll do it again for me one day, won't you, and I'll keep my promise.
+Hello!"
+
+A little girl appeared now at the barn door, dainty, dark-eyed and
+exquisitely dressed. She threw a lightning flash at the occupants of the
+barn.
+
+"Daddy!" she screamed. "It's Jumble! It _is_ Jumble! Oh, you horrid
+dog-stealing boy!"
+
+Jumble ran to her with shrill barks of welcome, then ran back to William
+to reassure him of his undying loyalty.
+
+"It _is_ Jumble," said the man. "He's called Jumble," he explained to
+William, "because he is a jumble. He's all sorts of a dog, you know.
+This is Ninette, my daughter, and my name is Jarrow, and we've taken
+Lavender Cottage for two months. We're roving vagabonds. We never stay
+anywhere longer than two months. So now you know all about us. Jumble
+seems to have adopted you. Ninette, my dear, you are completely ousted
+from Jumble's heart. This gentleman reigns supreme."
+
+"I _didn't_ steal him," said William indignantly. "He just came. He
+began following me. I didn't want him to--not jus' at first anyway, not
+much anyway. I suppose," a dreadful fear came to his heart, "I suppose
+you want him back?"
+
+"You can keep him for a bit if you want him, can't he Daddy? Daddy's
+going to buy me a Pom--a dear little white Pom. When we lost Jumble, I
+thought I'd rather have a Pom. Jumble's so rough and he's not really a
+_good_ dog. I mean he's no pedigree."
+
+"Then can I keep him jus' for a bit?" said William, his voice husky with
+eagerness.
+
+"Oh, yes. I'd much rather have a quieter sort of dog. Would you like to
+come and see our cottage? It's just over here."
+
+William, slightly bewildered but greatly relieved, set off with her. Mr.
+Jarrow followed slowly behind. It appeared that Miss Ninette Jarrow was
+rather a wonderful person. She was eleven years old. She had visited
+every capital in Europe, seen the best art and heard the best music in
+each. She had been to every play then on in London. She knew all the
+newest dances.
+
+"Do you like Paris?" she asked William as they went towards Lavender
+Cottage.
+
+"Never been there," said William stolidly, glancing round
+surreptitiously to see that Jumble was following.
+
+She shook her dark curly head from side to side--a little trick she had.
+
+"You funny boy. _Mais vous parlez Francais, n'est-ce pas?_"
+
+William disdained to answer. He whistled to Jumble, who was chasing an
+imaginary rabbit in a ditch.
+
+"Can you jazz?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know," he said guardedly. "I've not tried. I expect I could."
+
+She took a few flying graceful steps with slim black silk-encased legs.
+
+"That's it. I'll teach you at home. We'll dance it to a gramophone."
+
+William walked on in silence.
+
+She stopped suddenly under a tree and held up her little vivacious,
+piquant face to him.
+
+"You can kiss me if you like," she said.
+
+William looked at her dispassionately.
+
+"I don't want to, thanks," he said politely.
+
+"Oh, you _are_ a funny boy!" she said with a ripple of laughter, "and
+you look so rough and untidy. You're rather like Jumble. Do you like
+Jumble?"
+
+"Yes," said William. His voice had a sudden quaver in it. His ownership
+of Jumble was a thing of the past.
+
+"You can have him for always and always," she said suddenly. "_Now_ kiss
+me!"
+
+He kissed her cheek awkwardly with the air of one determined to do his
+duty, but with a great, glad relief at his heart.
+
+"I'd love to see you dance," she laughed. "You _would_ look funny."
+
+She took a few more fairy steps.
+
+"You've seen Pavlova, haven't you?"
+
+"Dunno."
+
+"You must know."
+
+"I mustn't," said William irritably. "I might have seen him and not
+known it was him, mightn't I?"
+
+She raced back to her father with another ripple of laughter.
+
+"He's _such_ a funny boy, Daddy, and he can't jazz and he's never seen
+Pavlova, and he can't talk French and I've given him Jumble and he
+didn't want to kiss me!"
+
+Mr. Jarrow fixed William with a drily quizzical smile.
+
+"Beware, young man," he said. "She'll try to educate you. I know her. I
+warn you."
+
+As they got to the door of Lavender Cottage he turned to William.
+
+"Now just sit and think for a minute. I'll keep my promise."
+
+"I do like you," said Ninette graciously as he took his departure. "You
+must come again. I'll teach you heaps of things. I think I'd like to
+marry you when we grow up. You're so--_restful_."
+
+William came home the next afternoon to find Mr. Jarrow in the armchair
+in the library talking to his father.
+
+"I was just dry for a subject," he was saying; "at my wits' end, and
+when I saw them there, I had a Heaven-sent inspiration. Ah! here he is.
+Ninette wants you to come to tea to-morrow, William. Ninette's given him
+Jumble. Do you mind?" turning to Mr. Brown.
+
+Mr. Brown swallowed hard.
+
+"I'm trying not to," he said. "He kept us all awake last night, but I
+suppose we'll get used to it."
+
+"And I made him a rash promise," went on Mr. Jarrow, "and I'm jolly well
+going to keep it if it's humanly possible. William, what would you like
+best in all the world?"
+
+William fixed his eyes unflinchingly upon his father.
+
+"I'd like my bow and arrows back out of that cupboard," he said firmly.
+
+Mr. Jarrow looked at William's father beseechingly.
+
+"Don't let me down," he implored. "I'll pay for all the damage."
+
+Slowly and with a deep sigh Mr. Brown drew a bunch of keys from his
+pocket.
+
+"It means that we all go once more in hourly peril of our lives," he
+said resignedly.
+
+After tea William set off again down the road. The setting sun had
+turned the sky to gold. There was a soft haze over all the countryside.
+The clear bird songs filled all the air, and the hedgerows were bursting
+into summer. And through it all marched William, with a slight swagger,
+his bow under one arm, his arrows under the other, while at his heels
+trotted Jumble, eager, playful, adoring--a mongrel unashamed--all sorts
+of a dog. And at William's heart was a proud, radiant happiness.
+
+There was a picture in that year's Academy that attracted a good deal of
+attention. It was of a boy sitting on an upturned box in a barn, his
+elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He was gazing down at a
+mongrel dog and in his freckled face was the solemnity and unconscious,
+eager wistfulness that is the mark of youth. His untidy, unbrushed hair
+stood up round his face. The mongrel was looking up, quivering,
+expectant, trusting, adoring, some reflection of the boy's eager
+wistfulness showing in the eyes and cocked ears. It was called
+"Friendship."
+
+Mrs. Brown went up to see it. She said it wasn't really a very good
+likeness of William and she wished they'd made him look a little tidier.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Italics are indicated throughout by underscores, _like this_.
+
+Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected without comment.
+
+The following typographical errors have been corrected:
+
+  Page 91: pour forth her toubles. changed to pour forth her troubles.
+  Page 159: goin' an' given' it our changed to goin' an' givin' it our
+  Page 189: I'm going' to be p'lite changed to I'm goin' to be p'lite
+  Page 215: me givin's it changed to me givin' it
+  Page 244: vous parlez Francais, n'est ce pas? changed to vous parlez
+            Francais, n'est-ce pas?
+
+On page 108, the contraction Folks 'll has been closed up.
+
+The abbreviation d. for penny is sometimes italicised, and sometimes
+not. This has been retained.
+
+All other original spelling and punctuation has been retained.
+
+In this text:
+
+  both arm-chair and armchair are used
+  both bed-room and bedroom are used
+  both bed-time and bedtime are used
+  both country-side and countryside are used
+  both door-way and doorway are used
+  both house-maid and housemaid are used
+  both india-rubber and Indiarubber are used
+  both kitchen-maid and kitchenmaid are used
+  both life-long and lifelong are used
+  both mantel-piece and mantelpiece are used
+  both open-mouthed and openmouthed are used
+  both pop-corn and popcorn are used
+  both rose-bud and rosebud are used
+  both ship-loads and shiploads are used
+
+Where full-page illustrations fall within paragraphs, they have been
+moved to the nearest paragraph break.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Just William, by Richmal Crompton
+
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