"Dammy Darling," whispered a broken and tear-stained voice outside
Dam's locked and keyless door the next morning, "are you dead yet?"

"Nit," was the prompt reply, "but I'm starving to death, fast."

"I am so glad," was the sobbed answer, "for I've got some flat food to
push under the door."

"Shove it under," said Dam. "Good little beast!"

"I didn't know anything about the fearful fracass until tea-time,"
continued Lucille, "and then I went straight to Grumper and confessed,
and he sent me to bed on an empty stummick and I laid upon it, the bed
I mean, and howled all night, or part of it anyhow. I howled for your
sake, not for the empty stummick. I thought my howls would break or at
least soften his hard heart, but I don't think he heard them. I'm sure
he didn't, in fact, or I should not have been allowed to howl so loud
and long.... Did he blame you with anger as well as injustice?"

"With a stick," was the reply. "What about that grub?"

"I told him you were an innocent unborn babe and that Justice had had
a mis-carriage, but he only grinned and said you had got C.B. and dry
bread for insilence in the Orderly Room. What is 'insilence'?"

"Pulling Havlan's leg, I s'pose," opined Dam. "What about that _grub_?
There comes a time when you are too hungry to eat and then you die.
I--"

"Here it is," squealed Lucille, "don't go and die after all my
trouble. I've got some thin ice-wafer biscuits, sulphur tablets, thin
cheese, a slit-up apple and three sardines. They'll all come under the
door--though the sardines may get a bit out of shape. I'll come after
lessons and suck some brandy-balls here and breathe through the
key-hole to comfort you. I could blow them through the key-hole when
they are small too."

"Thanks," acknowledged Dam gratefully, "and if you could tie some up
and a sausage and a tart or two and some bread-and-jam and some
chicken and cake and toffee and things in a handkerchief, and climb on
to the porch with Grumper's longest fishing-rod, you might be able to
relieve the besieged garrison a lot. If the silly Haddock were any
good he could fire sweets up with a catapult."

"I'd try that too," announced Lucille, "but I'd break the windows. I
feel I shall never have the heart to throw a stone or anything again.
My heart is broken," and the penitent sinner groaned in deep travail
of soul.

"Have you eaten everything, Darling? How do you feel?" she suddenly
asked.

"Yes. Hungrier than ever,"