ufficiently marked; the one merged too frequently into the other. Hence
occasional trouble.

Eustace had his arms full of parcels, which looked rather exciting. He
informed his delighted sister and friend that they were going to have
private fireworks on the balcony.

"Gracious, how ripping!" cried Clifford. "But it isn't the fifth of
November."

"Who on earth ever said it was?"

"Is it anybody's birthday?" asked Cissy.

"I daresay," said Pickering. "Sure to be."

"But you don't know that it's anybody's birthday for a fact, do you?"

"Yes, I do. It's a dead cert that it's somebody's. Somebody's born every
day. It's probably several people's birthday."

"But you don't know whose?"

"No. I don't know whose and I don't want to; what does it matter? Who
cares?"

They both laughed heartily. It was so like Pickering! That was Pickering
all over to give an exhibition of fireworks in honour of the birthday of
somebody he didn't know anything about, or in honour of its not being
the fifth November.

"But will mummy mind? Won't she be afraid?"

"She won't mind, because she won't know. And she won't be afraid because
she and father are going out to dinner and they won't hear anything
about it until all the danger's over. I've got rockets and Bengal
lights and all sorts of things here."

"But suppose they catch fire to the curtains on the balcony and we have
a fire-escape here," suggested Cissy.

"Well, and wouldn't that be ripping?"

They admitted that it would.

"Have you ever been down a fire-escape, Clifford?" asked Pickering.

"Me? Down a fire-escape? Wait a minute, let me think. No, no. Now I come
to think of it, upon my word, I don't think I ever have. Not down a
_fire-escape_."

"Ah, I thought not," said Pickering knowingly, as if he had spent his
life doing nothing else. "No, you wouldn't have."

"Well, have you?"

"Me?" said Pickering. "Well, I don't know that I have, _exactly_. But I
know all about it. Besides I once drove to a fire with one of the
firemen. It was jolly."

"But you're not going to give a fire-escape performance to-night, are
you? I thought you were only going to have fireworks."

"Yes, of course, that's all, and there's no danger really. How surprised
the people in the street will be when they see those ripping rockets go
whizzing up! I daresay we shall have a crowd round us."

"But I say, Eustace. Won't mummy say it's _vulgar_?"

"What's vulgar?"

"Why, to have firework