"He's probably in mischief somewhere. He'll be a perfect nuisance all the evening. Mother, couldn't you make him go to bed an hour earlier?"
William had no doubt as to the subject of the conversation. _Make him go to bed early!_ He'd like to see them! He'd just like to see them!
And he'd show them, anyway. Yes, he would show them. Exactly what he would show them and how he would show them, he was not as yet very clear. He looked round the room again. There were no eatables in it so far except the piled-up plate of huge pears on the sideboard.
He looked at it longingly. They'd probably counted them and knew just how many there ought to be. Mean sort of thing they would do. And they'd be in counting them every other minute just to see if he'd taken one. Well, he was going to score off somebody, somehow. Make him go to bed early indeed! He stood with knit brows, deep in thought, then his face cleared and he smiled. He'd got it! For the next five minutes he munched the delicious pears, but, at the end, the piled-up pyramid was apparently exactly as he found it, not a pear gone, only--on the inner side of each pear, the side that didn't show, was a huge semicircular bite. William wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve.
They were jolly good pears. And a blissful vision came to him of the faces of the guests as they took the pears, of the faces of his father and mother and Robert and Ethel. Oh, crumbs! He chuckled to himself as he went down to the kitchen again.
"I say, cook, could you make a small one--quite a small one--for threepence-halfpenny?"
Cook laughed.
"I was only pulling your leg, Master William. I've got one made and locked up in the larder."
"That's all right," said William. "I--wanted them to have a cream blanc-mange, that's all."
"Oh, _they'll_ have it all right; they won't leave much for you. I only made _one_!"
"Did you say locked in the larder?" said William carelessly. "It must be a bother for you to _lock_ the larder door each time you go in?"
"Oh, no trouble, Master William, thank you," said cook sarcastically; "there's more than the cream blanc-mange there; there's pasties and cakes and other things. I'm thinking of the last party your ma gave!"
William had the grace to blush. On that occasion William and a friend had spent the hour before supper in the larder, and supper had to be postponed while fresh provisions were beaten up from any and every quarter. William had passed a troubled night and spent the next day in bed.
"Oh, _then_! That was a long time ago. I was only a kid then."
"Umph!" grunted cook. Then, relenting, "Well, if there's any cream blanc-mange left I'll bring it up to you in bed. Now that's a promise.
Here, Emma, put these sandwiches in the larder. Here's the key! Now mind you _lock it_ after you!"
"Cook! Just come here for a minute."
It was the voice of William's mother from the library. William's heart rose. With cook away from the scene of action great things might happen. Emma took the dish of sandwiches, unlocked the pantry door, and entered. There was a crash of crockery from the back kitchen. Emma fled out, leaving the door unlocked. After she had picked up several broken plates, which had unaccountably slipped from the shelves, she returned and locked the pantry door.
William, in the darkness within, heaved a sigh of relief. He was in, anyway; how he was going to get out he wasn't quite sure. He stood for a few minutes in rapt admiration of his own cleverness. He'd scored off cook! Crumbs! He'd scored off cook! So far, at any rate. The first thing to do was to find the cream blanc-mange. He found it at last and sat down with it on the bread-pan to consider his next step.
Suddenly he became aware of two green eyes staring at him in the darkness. The cat was in too! Crumbs! The cat was in too! The cat, recognising its inveterate enemy, set up a vindictive wail. William grew cold with fright. The rotten old cat was going to give the show away!
"Here, Pussy! Good ole Pussy!" he whispered hoarsely. "Nice ole Pussy!
Good ole Pussy!"
The cat gazed at him in surprise. This form of address from William was unusual.
"Good ole Pussy!" went on William feverishly. "Shut up, then. Here's some nice blanc-mange. Just have a bit. Go on, have a bit and shut up."
He put the dish down on the larder floor before the cat, and the cat, after a few preliminary licks, decided that it was good. William sat watching for a bit. Then he came to the conclusion that it was no use wasting time, and began to sample the plates around him. He ate a whole jelly, and then took four sandwiches off each plate, and four cakes and pasties off each plate. He had learnt wisdom since the last party. Meanwhile, the cat licked away at the cream blanc-mange with every evidence of satisfaction. It even began to purr, and as its satisfaction increased so did the purr. It possessed a peculiar penetrating purr.
"Cook!" called out Emma from the kitchen.
Cook came out of the library where she was assisting with the festoon hanging. "What's the matter?"
"There's a funny buzzing noise in the larder."
"Well, go in and see what it is. It's probably a wasp, that's all."
Emma approached with the key, and William, clasping the blanc-mange to his bosom, withdrew behind the door, slipping off his shoes in readiness for action.
"Poor Puss!" said Emma, opening the door and meeting the cat's green, unabashed gaze. "Did it get shut up in the nasty dark larder, then?
Who did it, then?"
She was bending down with her back to William, stroking the cat in the doorway. William seized his chance. He dashed past her and up the stairs in stockinged feet like a flash of lightning. But Emma, leaning over the cat, had espied a dark flying figure out of the corner of her eye. She set up a scream. Out of the library came William's mother, William's sister, William's brother, and cook.
"A burglar in the larder!" gasped Emma. "I seed 'im, I did! Out of the corner of my eye, like, and when I looked up 'e wasn't there no more.
Flittin' up the 'all like a shadder, 'e was. Oh, lor! It's fairly turned me inside! Oh, lor!"
"What rubbish!" said William's mother. "Emma, you must control yourself!"
"I went into the larder myself 'm," said cook indignantly, "just before I came in to 'elp with the greenery ornaments, and it was hempty as--hair. It's all that silly Emma! Always 'avin' the jumps, she is----"
"Where's William?" said William's mother with sudden suspicion.
"William!"
William came out of his bedroom and looked over the balusters.
"Yes, mother," he said, with that wondering innocence of voice and look which he had brought to a fine art, and which proved one of his greatest assets in times of stress and strain.
"What are you doing?"
"Jus' readin' quietly in my room, mother."
"Oh, for heaven's sake don't disturb him, then," said William's sister.
"It's those silly books you read, Emma. You're always imagining things. If you'd read the ones I recommend, instead of the foolish ones you will get hold of----"
William's mother was safely mounted on one of her favourite hobby-horses. William withdrew to his room and carefully concealed the cream blanc-mange beneath his bed. He then waited till he heard the guests arrive and exchange greetings in the hall. William, listening with his door open, carefully committed to memory the voice and manner of his sister's greeting to her friends. That would come in useful later on, probably. No weapon of offence against the world in general and his own family in particular, was to be despised. He held a rehearsal in his room when the guests were all safely assembled in the drawing-room.
"Oh, _how_ are you, Mrs. Green?" he said in a high falsetto, meant to represent the feminine voice. "And how's the _darling_ baby? _Such_ a duck! I'm dying to see him again! Oh, Delia, darling! There you are!
_So_ glad you could come! What a perfect darling of a dress, my dear.
I know whose heart you'll break in that! Oh, Mr. Thompson!"--here William languished, bridled and ogled in a fashion seen nowhere on earth except in his imitations of his sister when engaged in conversation with one of the male sex. If reproduced at the right moment, it was guaranteed to drive her to frenzy, "I'm _so_ glad to see you. Yes, of course I really am! I wouldn't say it if I wasn't!"
The drawing-room door opened and a chatter of conversation and a rustling of dresses arose from the hall. Oh, crumbs! They were going in to supper. Yes, the dining-room door closed; the coast was clear.
William took out the rather battered-looking delicacy from under the bed and considered it thoughtfully. The dish was big and awkwardly shaped. He must find something that would go under his coat better than that. He couldn't march through the hall and out of the front door, bearing a cream blanc-mange, naked and unashamed. And the back door through the kitchen was impossible. With infinite care but little success as far as the shape of the blanc-mange was concerned, he removed it from its dish on to his soap-dish. He forgot, in the excitement of the moment, to remove the soap, but, after all, it was only a small piece. The soap-dish was decidedly too small for it, but, clasped to William's bosom inside his coat, it could be partly supported by his arm outside. He descended the stairs cautiously. He tip-toed lightly past the dining-room door (which was slightly ajar), from which came the shrill, noisy, meaningless, conversation of the grown-ups. He was just about to open the front door when there came the sound of a key turning in the lock.
William's heart sank. He had forgotten the fact that his father generally returned from his office about this time.
William's father came into the hall and glanced at his youngest offspring suspiciously.
"Hello!" he said, "where are you going?"
William cleared his throat nervously.