Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/24

 suffocation of "between sheets" until your head came out at the foot of the bed.) He did not rouse himself; for the three children had formed an agreement that no one of them should rise before the others, so that if one wished to take an extra forty winks while breakfast waited, they all lay in bed together, and the wrath of the powers of the household spent itself in a general thunder that did not strike.

But their restlessness continued; and when he heard a sly chuckle, he asked thickly: "What're you doing?" The over-prompt "Nothing!" of their answer wakened him. He rose on his elbow. Their wriggling ceased, and their two stolid faces stared blandly at him out of the bed-clothes.

One of them said, with a blink: "Who can make the highest cant'lever bridge?" (This was another of his inventions. To do it you stretched yourself out on your back, and then, with your elbows, raised an arch of body supported on neck and heels.) But while the elder cousin was getting himself up, he lifted the corner of his coverlet accidentally, and Don saw the black sleeve of his jacket. He cried, "You're dressing!"

They were already dressed. The playing "cant'lever bridge" had been a ruse by which they covered an attempt to draw up their knickerbockers to their waists. And all their other contortions had covered similar treasons.

They ran away to breakfast, shouting; and Don almost wept with chagrin and disappointment. It was so low a betrayal of his confidence—so treacherous