William leant back in a superior, benevolent manner and watched the smile freeze upon her face and her look of ecstasy change to one of fury.William leant back in a superior, benevolent manner and watched the smile freeze upon her face and her look of ecstasy change to one of fury.
"Oh, William," said the little girl next door sadly, "they're calling you. Will you have to go?"
"Not me," said William earnestly. "I'm not going—not till they fetch me. Here! you begin. I don't want any. I've had lots of things. You eat it all."
Her face radiant with anticipation, the little girl took up her spoon.
William leant back in a superior, benevolent manner and watched the smile freeze upon her face and her look of ecstasy change to one of fury. With a horrible suspicion at his heart he seized the spoon she had dropped and took a mouthful himself.
He had brought the rice-mould by mistake!
When William first saw him he was leaning against the wall of the White Lion, gazing at the passers-by with a moody smile upon his villainous-looking countenance.
It was evident to any careful observer that he had not confined his attentions to the exterior of the White Lion.
William, at whose heels trotted his beloved mongrel (rightly named Jumble), was passing him with a casual glance, when something attracted his attention. He stopped and looked back, then, turning round, stood in front of the tall, untidy figure, gazing up at him with frank and unabashed curiosity.
"Who cut 'em off?" he said at last in an awed whisper.
The figure raised his hands and stroked the long hair down the side of his face.
"Now yer arskin'," he said with a grin.
"Well, whodid?" persisted William.
"That 'ud be tellin'," answered his new friend, moving unsteadily from one foot to the other. "See?"
"You got 'em cut off in the war," said William firmly.
"I didn't. I bin in the wor orl right. Stroike me pink, I bin in the wor andthat'sthe truth. But I didn't get 'em cut orf in the wor. Well, I'll stop kiddin' yer. I'll tell yer strite. I never 'ad none.Nar!"
William stood on tiptoe to peer under the untidy hair at the small apertures that in his strange new friend took the place of ears. Admiration shone in William's eyes.
"Was youbornwithout 'em?" he said enviously.
His friend nodded.
"Nar don't yer go torkin' about it," he went on modestly, though seeming to bask in the sun of William's evident awe and respect. "I don't want all folks knowin' 'bout it. See? It kindermarksa man, this 'ere sort of thing. See? Makes 'im too easy totrack, loike. That's why I grow me hair long. See? 'Ere, 'ave a drink?"
He put his head inside the window of the White Lion and roared out "Bottle o' lemonide fer the young gent."
William followed him to a small table in the little sunny porch, and his heart swelled with pride as he sat and quaffed his beverage with a manly air. His friend, who said his name was Mr. Blank, showed a most flattering interest in him. He elicited from him the whereabouts of his house and the number of his family, a description of the door and window fastenings, of the dining-room silver and his mother's jewellery.
William, his eyes fixed with a fascinated stare upon Mr. Blank's ears, gave the required information readily, glad to be able in any way to interest this intriguing and mysterious being.
"Tell me about the war," said William at last.
"It were orl right while it larsted," said Mr. Blank with a sigh. "It were orl right, but I s'pose, like mos' things in this 'ere world, it couldn't larst fer ever. See?"
William set down the empty glass of lemonade and leant across the table, almost dizzy with the romance of the moment. Had Douglas, had Henry, had Ginger, had any of those boys who sat next him at school and joined in the feeble relaxations provided by the authorities out of school, ever donethis—ever sat at a real table outside a real public-house drinking lemonade and talking to a man with no ears who'd fought in the war and who looked as if he might have doneanything?
Jumble, meanwhile, sat and snapped at flies, frankly bored.
"Did you"—said William in a sibilant whisper—"did you everkillanyone?"
Mr. Blank laughed a laugh that made William's blood curdle.
"Me kill anyone? Me kill anyone?'Ondreds!"
William breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Here was romance and adventure incarnate.
"What do you do now the war's over?"
Mr. Blank closed one eye.
"That 'ud be tellin', wudn't it?"
"Did you"—said William in a sibilant whisper—"Did you ever kill anyone?""Did you"—said William in a sibilant whisper—"Did you ever kill anyone?"
"I'll keep it awfully secret," pleaded William. "I'll never tell anyone."
Mr. Blank shook his head.
"What yer want ter know fer, anyway?" he said.
William answered eagerly, his eyes alight.
"'Cause I'd like to do jus' the same when I grow up."
Mr. Blank flung back his head and emitted guffaw after guffaw of unaffected mirth.
"Oh 'ell," he said, wiping his eyes. "Oh, stroike me pink! That's good, that is. You wait, young gent, you wait till you've growed up and see what yer pa says to it. Oh 'ell!"
He rose and pulled his cap down over his eyes.
"Well, I'll say good day to yer, young gent."
William looked at him wistfully.
"I'd like to see you again, Mr. Blank, I would, honest. Will you be here this afternoon?"
"Wot d'yer want to see me agine fer?" said Mr. Blank suspiciously.
"Ilikeyou," said William fervently. "I like the way you talk, and I like the things you say, and I want to know about what you do!"
Mr. Blank was obviously flattered.
"I may be round 'ere agine this arter, though I mike no promise. See? I've gotter be careful, I 'ave. I've gotter be careful 'oo sees me an' 'oo 'ears me, and where I go. That's the worst of 'aving no ears. See?"
William did not see, but he was thrilled to the soul by the mystery.
"An' you don't tell no one you seen me nor nothing abart me," went on Mr. Blank.
Pulling his cap still farther over his head, Mr. Blank set off unsteadily down the road, leaving William to pay for his lemonade with his last penny.
He walked home, his heart set firmly on a lawless career of crime. Opposition he expected from his father and mother and Robert and Ethel, but his determination was fixed. He wondered if it would be very painful to have his ears cut off.
He entered the dining-room with an air of intense mystery, pulling his cap over his eyes, and looking round in a threatening manner.
"William, whatdoyou mean by coming into the house in your cap? Take it off at once."
William sighed. He wondered if Mr. Blank had a mother.
When he returned he sat down and began quietly to remodel his life. He would not be an explorer, after all, nor an engine-driver nor chimney-sweep. He would be a man of mystery, a murderer, fighter, forger. He fingered his ears tentatively. They seemed fixed on jolly fast. He glanced with utter contempt at his father who had just come in. His father's life of blameless respectability seemed to him at that minute utterly despicable.
"The Wilkinsons over at Todfoot have had their house broken into now," Mrs. Brown was saying. "Allher jewellery gone. They think it's a gang. It's just the villages round here. There seems to be one every day!"
William expressed his surprise.
"Oh, 'ell!" he ejaculated, with a slightly self-conscious air.
Mr. Brown turned round and looked at his son.
"May I ask," he said politely, "where you picked up that expression?"
"I got it off one of my fren's," said William with quiet pride.
"Then I'd take it as a personal favour," went on Mr. Brown, "if you'd kindly refrain from airing your friends' vocabularies in this house."
"He means you're never to say it again, William," translated Mrs. Brown sternly. "Never."
"All right," said William. "I won't. See? I da—jolly well won't. Strike me pink. See?"
He departed with an air of scowling mystery and dignity combined, leaving his parents speechless with amazement.
That afternoon he returned to the White Lion. Mr. Blank was standing unobtrusively in the shadow of the wall.
"'Ello, young gent," he greeted William, "nice dorg you've got."
William looked proudly down at Jumble.
"You won't find," he said proudly and with some truth, "you won't find another dog like this—not formiles!"
"Will 'e be much good as a watch dog, now?" asked Mr. Blank carelessly.
"Good?" said William, almost indignant at the question. "There isn't any sort of dog he isn't good at!"
"Umph," said Mr. Blank, looking at him thoughtfully.
"Tell me about things you'vedone," said William earnestly.
"Yus, I will, too," said Mr. Blank. "But jus' you tell me first 'oo lives at all these 'ere nice 'ouses an' all about 'em. See?"
William departed with an air of scowling mystery, leaving his parents speechless with amazement.William departed with an air of scowling mystery, leaving his parents speechless with amazement.
William readily complied, and the strange couple gradually wended their way along the road towards William's house. William stopped at the gate and considered deeply. He was torn between instincts of hospitality and a dim suspicion that his family would not afford to Mr. Blank that courtesy which is a guest's due. He looked at Mr. Blank's old green-black cap, long, untidy hair, dirty, lined, sly old face, muddy clothes and gaping boots, and decided quite finally that his mother would not allow him in her drawing-room.
"Will you," he said tentatively, "will you come roun' an' see our back garden? If we go behind these ole bushes and keep close along the wall, no one'll see us."
To William's relief Mr. Blank did not seem to resent the suggestion of secrecy. They crept along the wall in silence except for Jumble, who loudly worried Mr. Blank's trailing boot-strings as he walked. They reached a part of the back garden that was not visible from the house and sat down together under a shady tree.
"P'raps," began Mr. Blank politely, "you could bring a bit o' tea out to me on the quiet like."
"I'll ask mother——" began William.
"Oh, no," said Mr. Blank modestly. "I don't want ter give no one no trouble. Just a slice o' bread, if you can find it, without troublin' no one. See?"
William had a brilliant idea.
"Let's go 'cross to that window an' get in," he said eagerly. "That's the lib'ry and no one uses it 'cept father, and he's not in till later."
Mr. Blank insisted on tying Jumble up, then he swung himself dexterously through the window. William gave a gasp of admiration.
"You did that fine," he said.
Again Mr. Blank closed one eye.
"Not the first time I've got in at a winder, young gent, nor the larst, I bet. Not by a long way. See?"
William followed more slowly. His eye gleamed with pride. This hero of romance and adventure was now his guest, under his roof.
"Make yourself quite at home, Mr. Blank," he said with an air of intense politeness.
Mr. Blank did. He emptied Mr. Brown's cigar-box into his pocket. He drank three glasses of Mr. Brown's whiskey and soda. While William's back was turned he filled his pockets with the silver ornaments from the mantel-piece. He began to inspect the drawers in Mr. Brown's desk. Then:
Mr. Blank made himself quite at home.Mr. Blank made himself quite at home.
"William! Come to tea!"
"You stay here," whispered William. "I'll bring you some."
But luck was against him. It was a visitors' tea in the drawing-room, and Mrs. de Vere Carter, a neighbour, there, in all her glory. She rose from her seat with an ecstatic murmur.
"Willie!Dearchild!Sweetlittle soul!"
With one arm she crushed the infuriated William against her belt, with the other she caressed his hair. Then William in moody silence sat down in a corner and began to eat bread and butter. Every time he prepared to slip a piece into his pocket, he found his mother's or Mrs. de Vere Carter's eye fixed upon him and hastily began to eat it himself. He sat, miserable and hot, seeing only the heroic figure starving in the next room, and planned a raid on the larder as soon as he could reasonably depart. Every now and then he scowled across at Mrs. de Vere Carter and made a movement with his hands as though pulling a cap over his eyes. He invested even his eating with an air of dark mystery.
Then Robert, his elder brother, came in, followed by a thin, pale man with eye-glasses and long hair.
"This is Mr. Lewes, mother," said Robert with an air of pride and triumph. "He's editor ofFiddle Strings."
There was an immediate stir and sensation. Robert had often talked of his famous friend. In fact Robert's family was weary of the sound of his name, but this was the first time Robert had induced him to leave the haunts of his genius to visit the Brown household.
Mr. Lewes bowed with a set, stern, self-conscious expression, as though to convey to all that his celebrity was more of a weight than a pleasure to him. Mrs. de Vere Carter bridled and fluttered, forFiddle Stringshad a society column and a page of scrappy "News of the Town," and Mrs. de Vere Carter's greatest ambition was to see her name in print.
Mr. Lewes sat back in his chair, took his tea-cup as though it were a fresh addition to his responsibilities, and began to talk. He talked apparently without even breathing. He began on the weather, drifted on to art and music, and was just beginning a monologue on The Novel, when William rose and crept from the room like a guilty spirit. He found Mr. Blank under the library table, having heard a noise in the kitchen and fearing a visitor. A cigar and a silver snuffer had fallen from his pocket to the floor. He hastily replaced them. William went up and took another look at the wonderful ears and heaved a sigh of relief. While parted from his strange friend he had had a horrible suspicion that the whole thing was a dream.
"I'll go to the larder and get you sumthin'," he said. "You jus' stay here."
"I think, young gent," said Mr. Blank, "I think I'll just go an' look round upstairs on the quiet like, an' you needn't mention it to no one. See?"
Again he performed the fascinating wink.
They crept on tiptoe into the hall, but—the drawing-room door was ajar.
"William!"
William's heart stood still. He could hear his mother coming across the room, then—she stood in the doorway. Her face filled with horror as her eye fell upon Mr. Blank.
"William!" she said.
William's feelings were beyond description. Desperately he sought for an explanation for his friend's presence. With what pride andsang-froidhad Robert announced his uninvited guest! William determined to try it, at any rate. He advanced boldly into the drawing-room.
"This is Mr. Blank, mother," he announced jauntily. "He hasn't got no ears."
Mr. Blank stood in the background, awaiting developments. Flight was now impossible.
The announcement fell flat. There was nothing but horror upon the five silent faces that confronted William. He made a last desperate effort.
"He's bin in the war," he pleaded. "He's—killed folks."
Then the unexpected happened.
Mrs. de Vere Carter rose with a smile of welcome. In her mind's eye she saw the touching story already in print—the tattered hero—the gracious lady—the age of Democracy. The stage was laid and that dark, pale young man had only to watch and listen.
"Ah, one of our dear heroes! My poor, brave man! A cup of tea, my dear," turning to William's thunderstruck mother. "And he may sit down, may he not?" She kept her face well turned towards the sardonic-looking Mr. Lewes. He must not miss a word or gesture. "Howproudwe are to do anything for our dear heroes! Wounded, perhaps? Ah, poor man!" She floated across to him with a cup of tea and plied him with bread and butter and cake. William sat down meekly on a chair, looking rather pale. Mr. Blank, whose philosophy was to take the goods the gods gave and not look to the future, began to make a hearty meal. "Are you looking for work, my poor man?" asked Mrs. de Vere Carter, leaning forward in her chair.
Her poor man replied with simple, manly directness that he "was dam'd if he was. See?" Mr. Lewes began to discuss The Drama with Robert. Mrs. de Vere Carter raised her voice.
"Howyou must have suffered! Yes, there is suffering ingrained in your face. A piece of shrapnel? Ten inches square? Right in at one hip and out at the other? Oh, my poor man!HowI feel for you. How all class distinctions vanish at such a time. How——"
"Are you looking for work, my poor man?" asked Mrs. de Vere Carter."Are you looking for work, my poor man?" asked Mrs. de Vere Carter.
She stopped while Mr. Blank drank his tea. In fact, all conversation ceased while Mr. Blank drank his tea, just as conversation on a station ceases while a train passes through.
Mrs. Brown looked helplessly around her. When Mr. Blank had eaten a plate of sandwiches, a plate of bread and butter, and half a cake, he rose slowly, keeping one hand over the pocket in which reposed the silver ornaments.
"Well 'm," he said, touching his cap. "Thank you kindly. I've 'ad a fine tea. I 'ave. A dam' fine tea. An' I'll not forget yer kindness to a pore ole soldier." Here he winked brazenly at William. "An' good day ter you orl."
Mrs. de Vere Carter floated out to the front door with him, and William followed as in a dream.
Mrs. Brown found her voice.
"We'd better have the chair disinfected," she murmured to Ethel.
Then Mrs. de Vere Carter returned smiling to herself and eyeing the young editor surmisingly.
"I witnessed a pretty scene the other day in a suburban drawing-room...." It might begin like that.
William followed the amazing figure round the house again to the library window. Here it turned to him with a friendly grin.
"I'm just goin' to 'ave that look round upstairs now. See?" he said. "An' once more, yer don't need ter say nothin' to no one. See?"
With the familiar, beloved gesture he drew his old cap down over his eyes, and was gone.
William wandered upstairs a few minutes later to find his visitor standing at the landing window, his pockets bulging.
"I'm goin' to try this 'ere window, young gent," he said in a quick, business-like voice. "I see yer pa coming in at the front gate. Give me a shove. Quick, nar."
Mr. Brown entered the drawing-room.
"Mulroyd's had his house burgled now," he said. "Every bit of his wife's jewellery gone. They've got some clues, though. It's a gang all right, and one of them is a chap without ears. Grows his hair long to hide it. But it's a clue. The police are hunting for him."
He looked in amazement at the horror-stricken faces before him. Mrs. Brown sat down weakly.
"Ethel, my smelling salts! They're on the mantel-piece."
Robert grew pale.
"Good Lord—my silver cricket cup," he gasped, racing upstairs.
The landing window had been too small, and Mr. Blank too big, though William did his best.
There came to the astounded listeners the sound of a fierce scuffle, then Robert descended, his hair rumpled and his tie awry, holding William by the arm. William looked pale and apprehensive. "He was there," panted Robert, "just getting out of the window. He chucked the things out of his pockets and got away. I couldn't stop him. And—and William was there——"
William's face assumed the expression of one who is prepared for the worst.
"The plucky little chap! Struggling with him! Trying to pull him back from the window! All by himself!"
"Iwasn't," cried William excitedly. "I washelpinghim. He'smy friend. I——"
But they heard not a word. They crowded round him, praised him, shook hands with him, asked if he was hurt. Mrs. de Vere Carter kept up one perpetual scream of delight and congratulation.
"Thedearboy! The littlepet! Howbrave! Whatcourage! What anexampleto us all! And the horrid, wretched man! Posing as ahero. Wangling himself into the sweet child's confidence. Are you hurt, my precious? Did the nasty man hurt you? Youdarlingboy!"
When the babel had somewhat subsided, Mr. Brown came forward and laid a hand on William's shoulder.
"I'm very pleased with you, my boy," he said. "You can buy anything you like to-morrow up to five shillings."
William's bewildered countenance cleared.
"Thank you, father," he said meekly.
"A knight," said Miss Drew, who was struggling to inspire her class with enthusiasm for Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," "a knight was a person who spent his time going round succouring the oppressed."
"Suckin' wot?" said William, bewildered.
"Succour means to help. He spent his time helping anyone who was in trouble."
"How much did he get for it?" asked William.
"Nothing, of course," said Miss Drew, appalled by the base commercialism of the twentieth century. "He helped the poor because helovedthem, William. He had a lot of adventures and fighting and he helped beautiful, persecuted damsels."
William's respect for the knight rose.
"Of course," said Miss Drew hastily, "they needn't necessarily be beautiful, but, in most of the stories we have, they were beautiful."
Followed some stories of fighting and adventure and the rescuing of beautiful damsels. The idea of the thing began to take hold of William's imagination.
"I say," he said to his chum Ginger after school, "that knight thing sounds all right. Suckin'—I mean helpin' people an' fightin' an' all that. I wun't mind doin' it an' you could be my squire."
"Yes," said Ginger slowly, "I'd thought of doin' it, but I'd thought ofyoubein' the squire."
"Well," said William after a pause, "let's be squires in turn. You first," he added hastily.
"Wot'll you give me if I'm first?" said Ginger, displaying again the base commercialism of his age.
William considered.
"I'll give you first drink out of a bottle of ginger-ale wot I'm goin' to get with my next money. It'll be three weeks off 'cause they're takin' the next two weeks to pay for an ole window wot my ball slipped into by mistake."
He spoke with the bitterness that always characterised his statements of the injustice of the grown-up world.
"All right," said Ginger.
"I won't forget about the drink of ginger-ale."
"No, you won't," said Ginger simply. "I'll remind you all right. Well, let's set off."
"'Course," said William, "it would benicerwith armour an' horses an' trumpets, but I 'spect folks ud think anyone a bit soft wot went about in the streets in armour now, 'cause these times is different. She said so. Anyway she said we could still be knights an' help people, di'n't she? Anyway, I'll get my bugle. That'll besomething."
William's bugle had just returned to public life after one of its periodic terms of retirement into his father's keeping.
William took his bugle proudly in one hand and his pistol (the glorious result of a dip in the bran tub at a school party) in the other, and, sternly denying themselves the pleasures of afternoon school, off the two set upon the road of romance and adventure.
"I'll carry the bugle," said Ginger, "'cause I'm squire."
William was loth to give up his treasure.
"Well, I'll carry it now," he said, "but when I begin' fightin' folks, I'll give it you to hold."
They walked along for about a mile without meeting anyone. William began to be aware of a sinking feeling in the region of his waist.
"I wonder wot theyeat," he said at last. "I'm gettin' so's I wouldn't mind sumthin' to eat."
"We di'n't ought to have set off before dinner," said the squire with after-the-event wisdom. "We ought to have waited tillafterdinner."
"You ought to havebroughtsumthin'," said William severely. "You're the squire. You're not much of a squire not to have brought sumthin' for me to eat."
"An' me," put in Ginger. "If I'd brought any I'd have brought it for me more'n for you."
William fingered his minute pistol.
"If we meet any wild animals ..." he said darkly.
A cow gazed at them mournfully over a hedge.
"You might go an' milk that," suggested William. "Milk 'ud be better'n nothing."
"Yougo 'an milk it."
"No, I'm not squire. I bet squires did the milkin'. Knights wu'n't of done the milkin'."
"I'll remember," said Ginger bitterly, "when you're squire, all the things wot you said a squire ought to do when I was squire."
They entered the field and gazed at the cow from a respectful distance. She turned her eyes upon them sadly.
"Go on!" said the knight to his reluctant squire.
"I'm not good at cows," objected that gentleman.
"Well, I will, then!" said William with reckless bravado, and advanced boldly upon the animal. The animal very slightly lowered its horns (perhaps in sign of greeting) and emitted a sonorous mo-o-o-o-o. Like lightning the gallant pair made for the road.
"Anyway," said William gloomily, "we'd got nothin' to put it in, so we'd only of got tossed for nothin', p'raps, if we'd gone on."
They walked on down the road till they came to a pair of iron gates and a drive that led up to a big house. William's spirits rose. His hunger was forgotten.
"Come on!" he said. "We might find someone to rescue here. It looks like a place where there might be someone to rescue."
There was no one in the garden to question the right of entry of two small boys armed with a bugle and a toy pistol. Unchallenged they went up to the house. While the knight was wondering whether to blow his bugle at the front door or by the open window, they caught sight suddenly of a vision inside the window. It was a girl as fair and slim and beautiful as any wandering knight could desire. And she was speaking fast and passionately.
William, ready for all contingencies, marshalled his forces.
"Follow me!" he whispered and crept on all fours nearer the window. They could see a man now, an elderly man with white hair and a white beard.
"And how long will you keep me in this vile prison?" she was saying in a voice that trembled with anger, "base wretch that you are!"
"Crumbs!" ejaculated William.
"Ha! Ha!" sneered the man. "I have you in my power. I will keep you here a prisoner till you sign the paper which will make me master of all your wealth, and beware, girl, if you do not sign, you may answer for it with your life!"
"Golly!" murmured William.
Then he crawled away into the bushes, followed by his attendant squire.
"Well," said William, his face purple with excitement, "we've found someone to rescue allright. He's a base wretch, wot she said, allright."
"Will you kill him?" said the awed squire.
"How big was he? Could you see?" said William the discreet.
"He was ever so big. Great big face he had, too, with a beard."
"Then I won't try killin' him—not straight off. I'll think of some plan—somethin' cunnin'."
William and Ginger followed on all fours with elaborate caution.William and Ginger followed on all fours with elaborate caution.
He sat with his chin on his hands, gazing into space, till they were surprised by the opening of the front door and the appearance of a tall, thick-set, elderly man. William quivered with excitement. The man went along a path through the bushes. William and Ginger followed on all fours with elaborate caution. At every almost inaudible sound from Ginger, William turned his red, frowning face on to him with a resounding "Sh!" The path ended at a small shed with a locked door. The man opened the door—the key stood in the lock—and entered.
Promptly William, with a snarl expressive of cunning and triumph, hurled himself at the door and turned the key in the lock.
"Here!" came an angry shout from inside. "Who's that? What the devil——"
"You low ole caitiff!" said William through the keyhole.
"Who the deuce——?" exploded the voice.
"You base wretch, like wot she said you was," bawled William, his mouth still applied closely to the keyhole.
"Let me out at once, or I'll——"
"You mean ole oppressor!"
"Who the deuce are you? What's this tomfool trick? Let meout! Do you hear?"
A resounding kick shook the door.
"I've gotter pistol," said William sternly. "I'll shoot you dead if you kick the door down, you mangy ole beast!"
The sound of kicking ceased and a scrambling and scraping, accompanied by oaths, proceeded from the interior.
"I'll stay on guard," said William with the tense expression of the soldier at his post, "an' you go an' set her free. Go an' blow the bugle at the front door, then they'll know something's happened," he added simply.
Miss Priscilla Greene was pouring out tea in the drawing-room. Two young men and a maiden were the recipients of her hospitality.
"Dad will be here in a minute," she said. "He's just gone to the dark-room to see to some photos he'd left in toning or fixing, or something. We'll get on with the rehearsal as soon as he comes. We'd just rehearsed the scene he and I have together, so we're ready for the ones where we all come in."
"How did it go off?"
"Oh, quite well. We knew our parts, anyway."
"I think the village will enjoy it."
"Anyway, it's never very critical, is it? And it loves a melodrama."
"Yes. I wonder if father knows you're here. He said he'd come straight back. Perhaps I'd better go and find him."
"Oh, let me go, Miss Greene," said one of the youths ardently.
"Well, I don't know whether you'd find the place. It's a shed in the garden that he uses. We use half as a dark-room and half as a coal-cellar."
"I'll go——"
He stopped. A nightmare sound, as discordant as it was ear-splitting, filled the room. Miss Greene sank back into her chair, suddenly white. One of the young men let a cup of tea fall neatly from his fingers on to the floor and there crash into fragments. The young lady visitor emitted a scream that would have done credit to a factory siren. Then at the open French window appeared a small boy holding a bugle, purple-faced with the effort of his performance.
One of the young men was the first to recover speech. He stepped away from the broken crockery on the floor as if to disclaim all responsibility for it and said sternly:
"Did you make that horrible noise?"
Miss Greene began to laugh hysterically.
"Do have some tea now you've come," she said to Ginger.
Ginger remembered the pangs of hunger, of which excitement had momentarily rendered him oblivious, and, deciding that there was no time like the present, took a cake from the stand and began to consume it in silence.
"You'd better be careful," said the young lady to her hostess; "he might have escaped from the asylum. He looks mad. He had a very mad look, I thought, when he was standing at the window."
"He's evidently hungry, anyway. I can't think why father doesn't come."
Here Ginger, fortified by a walnut bun, remembered his mission.
"It's all right now," he said. "You can go home. He's shut up. Me an' William shut him up."
"You see!" said the young lady with a meaning glance around. "Isaidhe was from the asylum. He looked mad. We'd better humour him and ring up the asylum. Have another cake, darling boy," she said in a tone of honeyed sweetness.
Nothing loth, Ginger selected an ornate pyramid of icing.
At this point there came a bellowing and crashing and tramping outside and Miss Priscilla's father, roaring fury and threats of vengeance, hurled himself into the room. Miss Priscilla's father had made his escape by a small window at the other end of the shed. To do this he had had to climb over the coals in the dark. His face and hands and clothes and once-white beard were covered with coal. His eyes gleamed whitely.
"He's got out," William said reproachfully. "Why di'n't someone STOP him gettin' out?""He's got out," William said reproachfully. "Why di'n't someone STOP him gettin' out?"
"An abominable attack ... utterly unprovoked ... dastardly ruffians!"
Here he stopped to splutter because his mouth was full of coal dust. While he was spluttering, William, who had just discovered that his bird had flown, appeared at the window.
"He's got out," he said reproachfully. "Look at him. He's got out. An' all our trouble for nothing. Why di'n't someonestophim gettin' out?"
William and Ginger sat on the railing that separated their houses.
"It's not really muchfunbein' a knight," said William slowly.
"No," agreed Ginger. "You never know when folksisoppressed. An' anyway, wot's one afternoon away from school to make such a fuss about?"
"Seems to me from wot father said," went on William gloomily, "you'll have to wait a jolly long time for that drink of ginger-ale."
An expression of dejection came over Ginger's face.
"An' you wasn't even ever squire," he said. Then he brightened.
"They were jolly good cakes, wasn't they?" he said.
William's lips curved into a smile of blissful reminiscence.
"Jollygood!" he agreed.
Uncle George was William's godfather, and he was intensely interested in William's upbringing. It was an interest with which William would gladly have dispensed. Uncle George's annual visit was to William a purgatory only to be endured by a resolutely philosophic attitude of mind and the knowledge that sooner or later it must come to an end. Uncle George had an ideal of what a boy should be, and it was a continual grief to him that William fell so short of this ideal. But he never relinquished his efforts to make William conform to it.
His ideal was a gentle boy of exquisite courtesy and of intellectual pursuits. Such a boy he could have loved. It was hard that fate had endowed him with a godson like William. William was neither quiet nor gentle, nor courteous nor intellectual—but William was intensely human.
The length of Uncle George's visit this year was beginning to reach the limits of William's patience. He was beginning to feel that sooner or later something must happen. For five weeks now he had (reluctantly) accompanied Uncle George upon his morning walk, he had (generally unsuccessfully) tried to maintain that state of absolute quiet that Uncle George's afternoon rest required, he had in the evening listened wearily to Uncle George's stories of his youth. His usual feeling of mild contempt for Uncle George was beginning to give way to one which was much stronger.
"Now, William," said Uncle George at breakfast, "I'm afraid it's going to rain to-day, so we'll do a little work together this morning, shall we? Nothing like work, is there? Your Arithmetic's a bit shaky, isn't it? We'll rub that up. Weloveour work, don't we?"
William eyed him coldly.
"I don't think I'd better get muddlin' up my school work," he said. "I shouldn't like to be more on than the other boys next term. It wouldn't be fair to them."
Uncle George rubbed his hands.
"That feeling does you credit, my boy," he said, "but if we go over some of the old work, no harm can be done. History, now. There's nothing like History, is there?"
William agreed quite heartily that there wasn't.
"We'll do some History, then," said Uncle George briskly. "The lives of the great. Most inspiring. Better than those terrible things you used to waste your time on, eh?"
The "terrible things" had included a trumpet, a beloved motor hooter, and an ingenious instrument very dear to William's soul that reproduced most realistically the sound of two cats fighting. These, at Uncle George's request, had been confiscated by William's father. Uncle George had not considered them educational. They also disturbed his afternoon's rest.
Uncle George settled himself and William down for a nice quiet morning in the library. William, looking round for escape, found none. The outside world was wholly uninviting. The rain came down in torrents. Moreover, the five preceding weeks had broken William's spirits. He realised the impossibility of evading Uncle George. His own family were not sympathetic. They suffered from him considerably during the rest of the year and were not sorry to see him absorbed completely by Uncle George's conscientious zeal.
So Uncle George seated himself slowly and ponderously in an arm-chair by the fire.
"When I was a boy, William," he began, leaning back and joining the tips of his fingers together, "I loved my studies. I'm sure you love your studies, don't you? Which do you love most?"
"Me?" said William. "I like shootin' and playin' Red Injuns."
"Yes, yes," said Uncle George impatiently, "but those aren'tstudies, William. You must aim at beinggentle."
"It's not much good bein'gentlewhen you're playin' Red Injuns," said William stoutly. "AgentleRed Injun wun't get much done."
"Ah, but why play Red Indians?" said Uncle George. "A nasty rough game. No, we'll talk about History. You must mould your character upon that of the great heroes, William. You must be a Clive, a Napoleon, a Wolfe."
"I've often been a wolf," said William. "That game's nearly as good as Red Injuns. An' Bears is a good game too. We might have Bears here," he went on brightening. "Jus' you an' me. Would you sooner be bear or hunter? I'd sooner be hunter," he hinted gently.
"You misunderstand," said Uncle George. "I mean Wolfe the man, Wolfe the hero."
William, who had little patience with heroes who came within the school curriculum, relapsed into gloom.
"What lessons do we learn from such names, my boy?" went on Uncle George.
William was on the floor behind Uncle George's chair endeavouring to turn a somersault in a very restricted space.
"History lessons an' dates an' things," he said shortly. "An' the things they 'spect you to remember——!" he added with disgust.
"No, no," said Uncle George, but the fire was hot and his chair was comfortable and his educational zeal was dying away, "to endure the buffets of fate with equanimity, to smile at misfortune, to endure whatever comes, and so on——"
He stopped suddenly.
William had managed the somersault, but it had somehow brought his feet into collision with Uncle George's neck. Uncle George sleepily shifted his position.