s.

Then Denny said, 'I once saw holes in a cottage roof. The man told me
it was done when the water came through the thatch. He said if the water
lies all about on the top of the ceiling, it breaks it down, but if you
make holes the water will only come through the holes and you can put
pails under the holes to catch it.'

So we made nine holes in the ceiling with the poker, and put pails,
baths and tubs under, and now there was not so much water on the floor.
But we had to keep on working like niggers, and Mrs Pettigrew and Alice
worked the same.

About five in the morning the rain stopped; about seven the water did
not come in so fast, and presently it only dripped slowly. Our task was
done.

This is the only time I was ever up all night. I wish it happened
oftener. We did not go back to bed then, but dressed and went down. We
all went to sleep in the afternoon, though. Quite without meaning to.

Oswald went up on the roof, before breakfast, to see if he could find
the hole where the rain had come in. He did not find any hole, but
he found the cricket ball jammed in the top of a gutter pipe which he
afterwards knew ran down inside the wall of the house and ran into the
moat below. It seems a silly dodge, but so it was.

When the men went up after breakfast to see what had caused the flood
they said there must have been a good half-foot of water on the leads
the night before for it to have risen high enough to go above the edge
of the lead, and of course when it got above the lead there was nothing
to stop it running down under it, and soaking through the ceiling. The
parapet and the roofs kept it from tumbling off down the sides of
the house in the natural way. They said there must have been some
obstruction in the pipe which ran down into the house, but whatever it
was the water had washed it away, for they put wires down, and the pipe
was quite clear.

While we were being told this Oswald's trembling fingers felt at the wet
cricket ball in his pocket. And he KNEW, but he COULD not tell. He heard
them wondering what the obstruction could have been, and all the time he
had the obstruction in his pocket, and never said a single word.

I do not seek to defend him. But it really was an awful thing to have
been the cause of; and Mrs Pettigrew is but harsh and hasty. But this,
as Oswald knows too well, is no excuse for his silent conduct.

That night at tea Albert's uncle was rather silent too. At last he
looke