ou see we wanted a drink, an' the door was fast, so we got out
the window on the parazzo roof, an' comed in your window." (Here a
slight pause.) "An' 'twas fun. An' then we unlocked the door, an' comed
back."

Then I should be compelled to lock my window-blinds--or theirs, and
this in the summer season, too! Oh, if Helen could have but passed the
house as that white-robed procession had filed along the piazza-roof! I
lay pondering over the vast amount of unused ingenuity that was locked
up in millions of children, or employed only to work misery among
unsuspecting adults, when I heard light footfalls at my bedside, and
saw a small shape with a grave face approach and remark:--

"I wants to come in your bed."

"What for, Toddie?"

"To fwolic; papa always fwolics us Sunday mornin's. Tum, Budgie, Ocken
Hawwy's doin' to fwolic us."

Budge replied by shrieking with delight, tumbling out of bed, and
hurrying to that side of my bed not already occupied by Toddie. Then
those two little savages sounded the onslaught and advanced
precipitately upon me. Sometimes, during the course of my life, I have
had day-dreams which I have told to no one. Among these has been
one--not now so distinct as it was before my four years of
campaigning--of one day meeting in deadly combat the painted Indian of
the plains; of listening undismayed to his frightful war-whoop, and of
exemplifying in my own person the inevitable result of the pale-face's
superior intelligence. But upon this particular Sunday morning I
relinquished this idea informally, but forever. Before the advance of
these diminutive warriors I quailed contemptibly, and their battle-cry
sent more terror to my soul than that member ever experienced from the
well-remembered rebel yell. According to Toddie, I was going to
"fwolic" THEM; but from the first they took the whole business into
their own little but effective hands. Toddie pronounced my knees,
collectively a-horsie "bonnie," and bestrode them, laughing gleefully
at my efforts to unseat him, and holding himself in position by digging
his pudgy fingers into whatever portions of my anatomy he could most
easily seize. Budge shouted, "I want a horsie, too!" and seated himself
upon my chest. "This is the way the horsie goes," explained he, as he
slowly rocked himself backward and forward. I began to realize how my
brother-in-law, who had once been a fine gymnast, had become so
flat-chested. Just then Budge's face assumed a more