ie. We don't tell lies. You ask Albert's uncle
if we do.'

'Hold your tongue,' said the White-Whiskered. But Noel's blood was up.

'If you do put us in prison without being sure,' he said, trembling more
and more, 'you are a horrible tyrant like Caligula, and Herod, or Nero,
and the Spanish Inquisition, and I will write a poem about it in prison,
and people will curse you for ever.'

'Upon my word,' said White Whiskers. 'We'll see about that,' and he
turned up the lane with the fox hanging from one hand and Noel's ear
once more reposing in the other.

I thought Noel would cry or faint. But he bore up nobly--exactly like an
early Christian martyr.

The rest of us came along too. I carried the spade and Dicky had the
fork. H. O. had the card, and Noel had the magistrate. At the end of
the lane there was Alice. She had bunked home, obeying the orders of her
thoughtful brother, but she had bottled back again like a shot, so as
not to be out of the scrape. She is almost worthy to be a boy for some
things.

She spoke to Mr Magistrate and said--

'Where are you taking him?'

The outraged majesty of the magistrate said, 'To prison, you naughty
little girl.'

Alice said, 'Noel will faint. Somebody once tried to take him to prison
before--about a dog. Do please come to our house and see our uncle--at
least he's not--but it's the same thing. We didn't kill the fox, if
that's what you think--indeed we didn't. Oh, dear, I do wish you'd think
of your own little boys and girls if you've got any, or else about when
you were little. You wouldn't be so horrid if you did.'

I don't know which, if either, of these objects the fox-hound master
thought of, but he said--

'Well, lead on,' and he let go Noel's ear and Alice snuggled up to Noel
and put her arm round him.

It was a frightened procession, whose cheeks were pale with
alarm--except those between white whiskers, and they were red--that
wound in at our gate and into the hall among the old oak furniture, and
black and white marble floor and things.

Dora and Daisy were at the door. The pink petticoat lay on the table,
all stained with the gore of the departed. Dora looked at us all, and
she saw that it was serious. She pulled out the big oak chair and said,
'Won't you sit down?' very kindly to the white-whiskered magistrate.

He grunted, but did as she said.

Then he looked about him in a silence that was not comforting, and so
did we. At last he said--

'Come, y