owed myself to do on business
days. But having inherited, besides a New England conscience, a New
England abhorrence of waste, I regularly sit up two hours later on
Saturday nights than on any others; and the night preceding this
particular Sabbath was no exception to the rule, as the reader may
imagine from the foregoing recital. At about 5.30 A. M., however, I
became conscious that my nephews were not in accord, with me on the
Sinaitic law. They were not only awake, but were disputing vigorously,
and, seemingly, very loudly, for I heard their words very distinctly.
With sleepy condescension I endeavored to ignore these noisy
irreverents, but I was suddenly moved to a belief in the doctrine of
vicarious atonement, for a flying body, with more momentum than weight,
struck me upon the not prominent bridge of my nose, and speedily and
with unnecessary force accommodated itself to the outline of my eyes.
After a moment spent in anguish, and in wondering how the missive came
through closed doors and windows, I discovered that my pain had been
caused by one of the dolls, which, from its extreme uncleanness, I
suspected belonged to Toddie; I also discovered that the door between
the rooms was open.

"Who threw that doll?" I shouted, sternly. There came no response.

"Do you hear?" I roared.

"What is it, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge, with most exquisitely polite
inflection.

"Who threw that doll?"

"Huh?"

"I say, who threw that doll?"

"Why, nobody did it."

"Toddie, who threw that doll?"

"Budge did," replied Toddie in muffled tones, suggestive of a brotherly
hand laid forcibly over a pair of small lips.

"Budge, what did you do it for?"

"Why--why--I--because--why, you see--because, why, Toddie froo his
dolly in my mouth; some of her hair went in, any how, an' I didn't want
his dolly in my mouth, so I sent it back to him, an' the foot of the
bed didn't stick up enough, so it went from the door to your
bed--that's what for."

The explanation seemed to bear marks of genuineness, albiet the pain of
my eye was not alleviated thereby, while the exertion expended in
eliciting the information had so thoroughly awakened me that further
sleep was out of the question. Besides, the open door,--had a burglar
been in the room? No; my watch and pocketbook were undisturbed. "Budge,
who opened that door?"

After some hesitation, as if wondering who really did it, Budge
replied:--

"Me."

"How did you do it?"

"Why, y