ass.

Up to now all was not yet lost beyond recall. It was the stuffed fox
that did the mischief--and I am sorry to own it was Oswald who thought
of it. He is not ashamed of having _thought_ of it. That was rather
clever of him. But he knows now that it is better not to take other
people's foxes and things without asking, even if you live in the same
house with them.

It was Oswald who undid the back of the glass case in the hall and got
out the fox with the green and gray duck in its mouth, and when the
others saw how awfully like life they looked on the lawn, they all
rushed off to fetch the other stuffed things. Uncle has a tremendous lot
of stuffed things. He shot most of them himself--but not the fox, of
course. There was another fox's mask, too, and we hung that in a bush to
look as if the fox was peeping out. And the stuffed birds we fastened on
to the trees with string. The duck-bill--what's its name?--looked very
well sitting on his tail with the otter snarling at him. Then Dicky had
an idea; and though not nearly so much was said about it afterwards as
there was about the stuffed things, I think myself it was just as bad,
though it was a good idea too. He just got the hose and put the end over
a branch of the cedar-tree. Then we got the steps they clean windows
with, and let the hose rest on the top of the steps and run. It was to
be a water-fall, but it ran between the steps and was only wet and
messy; so we got father's mackintosh and uncle's and covered the steps
with them, so that the water ran down all right and was glorious, and it
ran away in a stream across the grass where we had dug a little channel
for it--and the otter and the duck-bill thing were as if in their native
haunts. I hope all this is not very dull to read about. I know it was
jolly good fun to do. Taking one thing with another, I don't know that
we ever had a better time while it lasted.

We got all the rabbits out of the hutches and put pink paper tails on to
them, and hunted them with horns, made out of the _Times_. They got away
somehow, and before they were caught next day they had eaten a good many
lettuces and other things. Oswald is very sorry for this. He rather
likes the gardener.

Denny wanted to put paper tails on the guinea-pigs, and it was no use
our telling him there was nothing to tie the paper on to. He thought we
were kidding until we showed him, and then he said, "Well, never mind,"
and got the girls to give him bit