"I could do it still better," said Jock, "if I blacked myself all over, not only my face, but all the rest, and put on nothing but my red flannel drawers and a turban. They'd take me for the ghost of the little n.i.g.g.e.r he flogged to death, and Allen could write something pathetic and stunning."

"You might cut human ears out of rabbit-skins and hang them round your neck," added Bobus.

"You'd be awfully cold," said Allen.

"You could mix in a little iodine," suggested Bobus. "That stings like fun, and a coppery tinge would be more natural."

There was great acclamation, but the difficulty was that the only time for effecting an entrance into the garden was between four and five in the morning, and it would be needful to lurk there in this light costume till Mr. Barnes went out. No one would be at liberty from school but Allen, and he declined the oil and lamp-black even though warmed up with iodine.

"Could it not be done by deputy?" said Bobus; "we might blacken the little fat boy riding on a swan, the statue, I mean."

"What, and gild the swan, to show how far his golden goose can carry him?" said Jock.

"Or," said Allen, "there's the statue they say is himself, though that's all nonsense. We could make a pair of donkey's ears in Mother Carey's clay, and clap them on him, and gild the thing in his hand."

"What would be the good of that?" asked Robert.

However, the fun was irresistible, and the only wonder was that the secret was kept for the whole day, while Allen moulded in the studio two things that might pa.s.s for a.s.s's ears, and secreted cement enough to fasten them on. The performance elicited such a rapture of applause that the door had to be fast locked against the incursion of the little ones to learn the cause of the mirth. When Mother Carey asked at tea what they were having so much fun about they only blushed, sniggled, and wriggled in their chairs in a way that would have alarmed a more suspicious mother, but only made her conclude that some delightful surprise was preparing, for which she must keep her curiosity in abeyance.

"Nor was she dismayed by the creaking of boots on the attic stairs before dawn, and when the boys appeared at breakfast with h.e.l.lebore, blue periwinkle, and daffodils, clear indications of where they had been, she only exclaimed--

"Forbidden sweets! O you naughty boys!" when ecstatic laughter alone replied.

She heard no more till the afternoon, when the return from school was notified by shouts from Allen, and the boys rushed up to the verandah where he was reading.

"I say! here's a go. He thinks Richards has done it, and has written to Ogilvie to have him expelled."

"How do you know?"

"He told me himself."

"But Ogilvie has too much sense to expel him!"

"Of course, but there's worse, for old Barnes means to turn off his father. Nothing will persuade the old fellow that it wasn't his work, for he says that it must be a grammar-school boy."

"Does d.i.c.ky Bird guess?"

"Yes, but he's all right, as close as wax. He says he was sure no one but ourselves could have done it, for n.o.body else could have thought of such things or made them either."

"Then he has seen it?"

"Yes, and he was fit to kill himself with laughing, though his father and old Barnes were mad with rage and fury. His father believes him, but old Barnes believes neither of them, and swears his father shall go."

"We shall have to split on ourselves," elegantly observed Johnny.

"We had better tell Mother Carey. Hullo! here she is, inside the window."

"Didn't you know that," said Allen.

Therefore the boys, leaning and sprawling round her, half in and half out of the window, told the story, the triumph overcoming all compunction, as they described the morning raid, the successful scaling of the park-wall, the rush across the sward, the silence of the garden, the hoisting up of Allen to fasten on the ears, and the wonderful charms of the figure when it wore them and held a golden apple in its hand.

"Right of Way," and "Let us in," had been written in black on all the pedestals.

"It is a peculiar way of recommending your admission," said Caroline.

"That's Rob's doing," said Allen. "I couldn't look after him while I was gilding the apple or I would have stopped him. He half blacked the little boy on the swan too--"

"And broke the swan's bill off, worse luck," added Johnny.

"Yes," said Allen, "that was altogether low and unlucky! I meant the old fellow simply to have thought that his statue had grown a pair of ears in the night."

"And what would have been the use of that?" said Robin.

"What was the use of all your scrawling," said Allen, "except just to show it was not the natural development of statues."

"Yes," added Bobus, "it all came of you that poor d.i.c.key Bird is suspected and it is all blown up."

"As if he would have thought it was done by n.o.body," said Rob.

"Why not?" said Jock. "I'm sure I'd never wonder to see a.s.s's ears growing on you. I think they are coming."

There was a shout of laughter as Rob hastily put up his hands to feel for them, adding in his slow, gruff voice--"A statue ain't alive."

"It made a fool of the whole matter," proceeded Bobus. "I wish we'd kept a lout like you out of it."

"Hush, hush, Bobus," put in his mother, "no matter about that. The question is what is to be done about poor Mr. Richards and Alfred."

"Write a poetical letter," said Allen, beginning to extemporise in Hiawatha measure.

"O thou mighty man of money, Barnes, of Belforest, Esquire, Innocent is Alfred Richards; Innocent his honest father; Innocent as unborn baby Of development of Midas, Of the smearing of the Cupid, Of the fracture of the goose-bill, Of the writing of the mottoes.

All the Brownlows of St. Kenelm's, From the Folly and from Kencroft.

Robert, the aspiring soldier, Robert, too, the sucking chemist, John, the Skipjack full of mischief, John, the great originator, Allen, the--"

"Allen the uncommon gaby," broke in Bobus. "Come, don't waste time, something must be done."

"Yes, a rational letter must be written and signed by you all," said his mother. "The question is whether it would be better to do it through your uncle or Mr. Ogilvie."

"I don't see why my father should hear of it, or Mr. Ogilvie either,"

growled Rob. "I didn't do those donkeyfied ears."

"You did the writing, which was five hundred times more donkeyfied,"

said Jock.

"It is quite impossible to keep either of them in ignorance," said Caroline.

"Yes," repeated all her own three; Jock adding "Father would have known it as soon as you, and I don't see that my uncle is much worse."