ve to take it and grin and bear it,
whether it's the cane or impositions. Worst of it is, it'll mean ever
so much keeping in. I wouldn't care if it had been a month or two ago."

"What difference would that have made?"

"Why, it was all wet weather then. Now it's so fine, I want for us to
go and collect things, and I'm not going to be beaten over that
stuffing. Next time I shall look at a live bird ever so long before I
try to stuff one, and then you'll see. We'll be on the watch next time,
so that old Eely shan't catch us, and--ha, ha, ha! Oh my! oh my! oh
my!" he cried, sitting down on the edge of his bed, rocking himself to
and fro, and kicking up his bare feet and working his toes about in the
air.

"What are you laughing about?" I said, feeling glad to see that he too
was getting rid of the depression.

"Wait a bit," he whispered. "Won't we astonish them! Oh, my nose, how
it does hurt!" he added, covering the swollen organ with his hand, and
speaking in a snuffling tone. "I shall aim straight at old Eely's snub
all the time, so as to make it twice as big as mine is. He will be so
mad, for he's as proud of himself as a peacock, and thinks he's
handsome. What do you think he does?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Puts scent on his handkerchief every morning--musk. Oh, he is a dandy!
But wait a bit! Seventeen shillings! Isn't it a lot for two pairs of
gloves? And, I say!"

"Yes."

"He's an awful dandy about his gloves too. By and by, when he's had his
licking,--two lickings, for you shall give him one too,--I'll tell you
what we'll always say to him."

"Well?"

"We'll say, `What sized gloves do you take?'"

"But he will not know anything about the gloves," I said, interrupting a
laugh. "We shan't have gloves on then."

"No more we shall. What a pity! That spoils my joke. Never mind.
Let's dress, and go and look at the gardens--perhaps there may be some
good butterflies out in the sunshine; and as soon as cook's down, I'll
beg some hot water to bathe my nose."

But Mercer did not put in a petition for the hot water. "It's no good,"
he said, when we were down by the gardens, soon after we were dressed.
"It's like physic; we've got to take it, so we may as well face it all
out and get it over."

Very good philosophy, of course, but I did not feel hopeful about what
was to come.

It all began at breakfast, where we were no sooner seated, than Mr
Rebble came by with the new assistant m