uilder, and mixed with water--the water we had brought in a
medicine-bottle--it was a prime disguise. And we knew it would wash off,
unlike the Condy's fluid we once stained ourselves with during a
never-to-be-forgotten game of Jungle-Book.

We had put on all the glorious things we had bagged from Miss Sandal's
attic treasures, but still Alice had a small bundle unopened.

"What's that?" Dora asked.

"I meant to keep it as a reserve force in case the fortune-telling
didn't turn out all our fancy painted it," said Alice; "but I don't mind
telling you now."

She opened the bundle, and there was a tambourine, some black lace, a
packet of cigarette papers, and our missing combs.

"What ever on earth----" Dicky was beginning, but Oswald saw it all. He
has a wonderfully keen nose. And he said--

"Bully for you, Alice. I wish I'd thought it myself."

Alice was much pleased by this handsome speech.

"Yes," she said; "perhaps really it would be best to begin with it. It
would attract the public's attention, and then we could tell the
fortunes. You see," she kindly explained to Dicky and H.O. and Dora, who
had not seen it yet--though Noel had, almost as soon as I did--"you see,
we'll all play on the combs with the veils over our faces, so that no
one can see what our instruments are. Why, they might be mouth-organs
for anything any one will know, or some costly instruments from the
far-off East, like they play to sultans in zenanas. Let's just try a
tune or two before we go on, to be sure that all the combs work right.
Dora's has such big teeth, I shouldn't wonder if it wouldn't act at
all."

So we all papered our combs and did "Heroes," but that sounded awful.
"The Girl I Left Behind Me" went better, and so did "Bonnie Dundee." But
we thought "See the Conquering" or "The Death of Nelson" would be the
best to begin with.

It was beastly hot doing it under the veils, but when Oswald had done
one tune without the veil to see how the others looked he could not help
owning that the veils did give a hidden mystery that was a stranger to
simple combs.

We were all a bit puffed when we had played for awhile, so we decided
that as the donkey seemed calm and was eating grass and resting, we
might as well follow his example.

"We ought not to be too proud to take pattern by the brute creation,"
said Dora.

So we had our lunch in the wood. We lighted a little fire of sticks and
fir-cones, so as to be as gipsyish as we could