the stand where
he was replacing his walking stick.

"What was that?"

William looked round the hall absently. "What, father?"

William's father now fastened his eyes upon William's person.

"What have you got under your coat?"

"Where?" said William with apparent surprise.

Then, looking down at the damp excrescence of his coat, as if he
noticed it for the first time, "Oh, that!" with a mirthless smile. "Do
you mean _that_? Oh, that's jus'--jus' somethin' I'm takin' out with
me, that's all."

Again William's father grunted.

"Well," he said, "if you're going for this walk up the road why on
earth don't you go, instead of standing as if you'd lost the use of
your feet?"

William's father was hanging up his overcoat with his back to William,
and the front door was open. William wanted no second bidding. He
darted out of the door and down the drive, but he was just in time to
hear the thud of a falling body, and to hear a muttered curse as the
Head of the House entered the dining-room feet first on a long slide
of some white, glutinous substance.

"Oh, crumbs!" gasped William as he ran.

The little girl next door was sitting in the summer-house, armed with
a spoon, when William arrived. His precious burden had now saturated
his shirt and was striking cold and damp on his chest. He drew it from
his coat and displayed it proudly. It had certainly lost its pristine,
white, rounded appearance. The marks of the cat's licks were very
evident; grime from William's coat adhered to its surface; it wobbled
limply over the soap dish, but the little girl's eyes sparkled as she
saw it.

"Oh, William, I never thought you really would! Oh, you are wonderful!
And I _had_ it!"

"What?"

"Rice-mould for supper, but I didn't mind, because I thought--I hoped,
you'd come with it. Oh, William, you _are a nice_ boy!"

William glowed with pride.

"William!" bellowed an irate voice from William's front door.

William knew that voice. It was the voice of the male parent who has
stood all he's jolly well going to stand from that kid, and is out for
vengeance. They'd got to the pears! Oh, crumbs! They'd got to the
pears! And even the thought of Nemesis to come could not dull for
William the bliss of that vision.

[Illustration: 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, "