the knob of
the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow
dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face
to be red with rage, or white with passion, or purple with mixed
emotions, but you cannot think what our feelings were--indeed, we hardly
knew what they were ourselves--when we saw that he was not red or white
or purple, but _black_. He looked like an uneven sort of bluish nigger.
His face and hands were all black and blue in streaks, and so were the
bits of his feet that showed between his Indian dressing-gown and his
Turkish slippers.

[Illustration: "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG!" JANE
ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY.]

The word "Krikey" fell from more than one lip.

"What are you staring at?" he asked.

We did not answer even then, though I think it was less from
keep-your-wordishness than amazement. But Jane did.

"Nyang, Nyang!" she uttered tauntingly. "You thought it was soap I was
giving you, and all the time it was Maple's dark bright navy-blue
indelible dye--won't wash out." She flashed a looking-glass in his face,
and he looked and saw the depth of his dark bright navy-blueness.

Now, you may think that we shouted with laughing to see him done brown
and dyed blue like this, but we did not. There was a spellbound silence.
Oswald, I know, felt a quite uncomfortable feeling inside him.

When Archibald had had one good look at himself he did not want any
more. He ran to his room and bolted himself in.

"_He_ won't go to no parties," said Jane, and she flounced downstairs.

We never knew how much Noel had told her. He is very young, and not so
strong as we are, and we thought it better not to ask.

Oswald and Dicky and H.O.--particularly H.O.--told each other it served
him right, but after a bit Dora asked Noel if he would mind her trying
to get some of it off our unloved cousin, and he said "No."

[Illustration: WHEN FATHER CAME HOME THERE WAS AN AWFUL ROW.]

But nothing would get it off him; and when Father came home there was an
awful row. And he said we had disgraced ourselves and forgotten the
duties of hospitality. We got it pretty straight, I can tell you. And we
bore it all. I do not say we were martyrs to the honour of our house and
to our plighted word, but I do say that we got it very straight indeed,
and we did not tell the provocativeness we had had from our guest that
drove the poet Noel to this wild and desperate revenge.

But s