tory siren. Then
at the open French window appeared a small boy holding a bugle,
purple-faced with the effort of his performance.

One of the young men was the first to recover speech. He stepped away
from the broken crockery on the floor as if to disclaim all
responsibility for it and said sternly:

"Did you make that horrible noise?"

Miss Greene began to laugh hysterically.

"Do have some tea now you've come," she said to Ginger.

Ginger remembered the pangs of hunger, of which excitement had
momentarily rendered him oblivious, and, deciding that there was no
time like the present, took a cake from the stand and began to consume
it in silence.

"You'd better be careful," said the young lady to her hostess; "he
might have escaped from the asylum. He looks mad. He had a very mad
look, I thought, when he was standing at the window."

"He's evidently hungry, anyway. I can't think why father doesn't
come."

Here Ginger, fortified by a walnut bun, remembered his mission.

"It's all right now," he said. "You can go home. He's shut up. Me an'
William shut him up."

"You see!" said the young lady with a meaning glance around. "I _said_
he was from the asylum. He looked mad. We'd better humour him and ring
up the asylum. Have another cake, darling boy," she said in a tone of
honeyed sweetness.

Nothing loth, Ginger selected an ornate pyramid of icing.

At this point there came a bellowing and crashing and tramping outside
and Miss Priscilla's father, roaring fury and threats of vengeance,
hurled himself into the room. Miss Priscilla's father had made his
escape by a small window at the other end of the shed. To do this he
had had to climb over the coals in the dark. His face and hands and
clothes and once-white beard were covered with coal. His eyes gleamed
whitely.

[Illustration: "HE'S GOT OUT," WILLIAM SAID REPROACHFULLY. "WHY DI'N'T
SOMEONE STOP HIM GETTIN' OUT?"]

"An abominable attack ... utterly unprovoked ... dastardly ruffians!"

Here he stopped to splutter because his mouth was full of coal dust.
While he was spluttering, William, who had just discovered that his
bird had flown, appeared at the window.

"He's got out," he said reproachfully. "Look at him. He's got out. An'
all our trouble for nothing. Why di'n't someone _stop_ him gettin'
out?"

* * * * *

William and Ginger sat on the railing that separated their houses.

"It's not really much _fun_ bein' a kn