nd at last we got it out of him what
had happened. He doesn't tell a story right from the beginning like
Oswald and some of the others do, but from his disjunctured words the
author has made the following narration. This is called editing, I
believe.

"It was all Noel's fault," H.O. said; "what did he want to go jawing
about Rome for?--and a clown's as good as a beastly poet, anyhow! You
remember that day we made toffee? Well, I thought of it then."

"You didn't tell us."

"Yes, I did. I half told Dicky. He never said don't, or you'd better
not, or gave me any good advice or anything. It's his fault as much as
mine. Father ought to speak to him to-night the same as me--and Noel,
too."

We bore with him just then because we wanted to hear the story. And we
made him go on.

"Well--so I thought if Noel's a cowardy custard I'm not--and I wasn't
afraid of being in the basket, though it was quite dark till I cut the
air-holes with my knife in the railway van. I think I cut the string off
the label. It fell off afterwards, and I saw it through the hole, but of
course I couldn't say anything. I thought they'd look after their silly
luggage better than that. It was all their fault I was lost."

"Tell us how you did it, H.O. dear," Dora said; "never mind about it
being everybody else's fault."

"It's yours as much as any one's, if you come to that," H.O. said. "You
made me the clown dress when I asked you. You never said a word about
not. So there!"

"Oh, H.O., you _are_ unkind!" Dora said. "You know you said it was for a
surprise for the bridal pair."

"So it would have been, if they'd found me at Rome, and I'd popped up
like what I meant to--like a jack-in-the-box--and said, 'Here we are
again!' in my clown's clothes, at them. But it's all spoiled, and
father's going to speak to me this evening." H.O. sniffed every time he
stopped speaking. But we did not correct him then. We wanted to hear
about everything.

"Why didn't you tell me straight out what you were going to do?" Dicky
asked.

"Because you'd jolly well have shut me up. You always do if I want to do
anything you haven't thought of yourself."

"What did you take with you, H.O.?" asked Alice in a hurry, for H.O. was
now sniffing far beyond a whisper.

"Oh, I'd saved a lot of grub, only I forgot it at the last. It's under
the chest of drawers in our room. And I had my knife--and I changed into
the clown's dress in the cupboard at the Ashleighs--over my o