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172 By-and-by a gentle knock comes at the door. "Who is it?" I ask, trembling. Perhaps it is only a trick of my outraged parent?

"Me," says Jack's voice. Why will people persist in believing that "Me" is known of everybody and requires no bush? I open the door, let him in, lock it again, then turn round and face him.

"You sneak!" I say slowly; "you took good care to hide yourself, didn't you? And you took good care not to warn me, didn't you? I'm ashamed of you."

"That's just like a girl," says Jack, sitting down. "Stow your heroics a bit, and listen to me. I followed you as far as the hall, and half-way across I caught my foot in a beast of a mat, and went head foremost. When I picked myself up you had vanished, and I was just wondering whether you had gone into the library or the dining-room, when a ring came at the front-door bell; and I had hardly got behind Venus, when in walked the governor! Quarrelled with Skippy, I suppose, or yearned for his family; at any rate there he was. He went into the dining-room, and the next thing I heard was a fearful whack! then noise enough to lift the hair from one's head. Then out you rushed, the governor at your heels, and bang he went into William's arms, and over they went. Oh! shall I ever forget it!" He stuffs a corner of the sheet into his mouth and rolls. "The candles were squashed as flat as pancakes, and the governor, only too glad to vent his rage on somebody, pommelled William like mad, who was underneath and offered no resistance, merely saying, ' Don't, sir! don't, sir! don't, sir!' without stopping for a single moment. I was behind Venus all the time, and I shook so that I nearly knocked the poor soul over. By the time the governor had finished off William, Amberley appeared, bleating. The governor soon squashed her into a jelly; and after shaking his fist at your door, and muttering darkly about to-morrow, he stormed himself into the library.

"Jack," I say, in a voice that I try hard to make, "don't carish" "do you—do you think he will kill me?"