'I dare say they would not tell a kid like you,' he answered loftily.
'They have taken a house at Southsea--miles away from here. _Now_ do you
see why I have made this figure?'

'No-o-o!' she said, half crying.

'Oh, _do_ dry up, Gussie, or I won't tell you anything! Don't you
remember in the history lesson this morning, Miss Gower told us that
when people hated one another, ages ago, they got wizards to make wax
images of their enemies, and let them melt slowly away, and as they
melted, the other fellow began to get thin and ill--and went on getting
thinner and iller, till---- '

'Till he died!' shrieked Gussie. 'Oh, Jack, you won't do that?'

The boy blew out the candle, and placed the figure opposite the fire,
just inside the fender.

'We shall see!' he said mysteriously. 'I shall do it very slowly, a
little bit each day, and watch the effect on Captain Halliard. He's
coming here this evening, you know. Of course, Lilian will never want to
marry a man who gets thinner and iller every day; but if that's not
enough, and he still wants to carry off _my_ sister, I'll just---- '

* * * * *

'Children! children! open the door, quick! The hall is full of smoke.'

The girlish tones were emphasised by most undoubtedly manly thumps. Jack
hesitated, but Gussie flew to turn the key.

Lilian Phillips rushed in, followed closely by a tall stranger. The
draught from the open door located the origin of the smoke only too
easily. The schoolroom curtains burst into flames!

Gussie ran up to her elder sister. Jack, the bold, the self-reliant, was
momentarily paralysed.

It was the stranger who jumped on the sofa, and tore those curtains
down--crushing them with his hands--- stamping on them till the flames
were extinguished, finally emerging from the smoking curtain with singed
hair and beard, and shaking his scorched fingers, but otherwise calm and
unruffled.

'Hullo, young man! Are you responsible for all this? What had you been
up to? Guy Fawkes' Day is long past. All right, Lilian, don't bother
about me. I'm not hurt--though I'm afraid as much cannot be said for the
curtains.

'Oh, George, what should we have done without you? What a mercy it was
you caught the afternoon train. What _were_ you two children doing?'
gasped Lilian, almost in one breath.

'Gussie wasn't doing anything!' asserted Jack, stoutly. 'I had lit a
candle. I don't see how that could have set the curtains on fir