, 'because I have to play to-night
at Exeter Hall. Fly--fly for the police! They may come up behind you any
moment and cleave you to the chine.'

And they actually flew. The present author would have known instantly
that it was rot that about cleaving chines, but the man who wanted to
let the Disenchanteried House and the man who wanted to have it let to
him were of other mettle.

We had remained perfectly still and silent. Of course, if the outsiders
had attacked Noel, his brothers would have rushed to his rescue.

As soon as the retreating boots of the outsiders grew fainter on the
stairs, Noel turned green, and had to be revived by splashings from the
brotherly coal-scuttle full of water. He got better directly, and we all
scooted home to old nurse's, leaving our coining plant without a pang.
All great generals say that a retreat is best conducted without
impediments.

Noel was so ill he had to go to bed and stay there. This was as well,
because of the neighbourhood being scoured for the ill-used infant
prodigy that had been imprisoned in the Enchanceried House. He got all
right again in time to go home when father came up for us. While he was
in bed he wrote a long poem in six different coloured chalks, called
'The Enchanceried Coiners, or the Liar's Remorse.' So I know he was
sorry for what he had done. He told me he could not think what made him,
and of course it was very wrong, but it did save our bacon, and preserve
us from the noisome cells and bread and water that I am sure are the
real meaning of the 'utmost rigour of the law.'

Really the worst of it all was that while we were trembling in the
coiners' den, with the two outside gentlemen snorting and whispering on
the other side of the gate-door, H. O. had got up out of his bed at home
and answered the door. (Old nurse had gone out to get a lettuce and an
aerated loaf for tea.) He answered it to a butcher's bill for fifteen
and sevenpence that the butcher's little girl had brought, and he paid
it with six of the pennies that we had disguised as half-crowns, and
told the little girl to call for the sevenpence in the morning. I
believe many people have been hanged for less. It was lucky for H. O.
that old nurse was a friend of the butcher's, and able to persuade him
that it was only a joke. In sterner times, like the French Revolution
... but Alice does not like to think what would have happened then. As
this is the twentieth century, and not the eighteen