Miranda was thirteen years old, and she lived in the next house. She was Peter\'s best friend. They had soon discovered that their ideas as to a good game were similar, and for many years they had played inseparably. Already Mrs. Paragon and Mrs. Smith had decided to open a way through the wall that divided the two gardens.

To-day this breach in the wall had been filled in by Miranda with packing-cases and an old chair. Miranda stood beside her defences of the breach with sword and shield on the summit of a wall less than nine inches across.

At the wall\'s foot was Peter. He was his favourite hero—Shakespeare\'s fifth Henry.
"How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit."

The moment had come for Miranda to descend from the wall and deliver the keys of the city. But Miranda this morning refused the usual programme. Peter, hearing that the text of Shakespeare would not on this occasion be followed, resolved that none of the horrors of war should be spared.

He came to the attack with a battering-ram.

[Pg 9]

"Saint George! Saint George!" he shouted, and the ram rushed forward.

"France! France!" Miranda screamed, and unexpectedly emptied a pail of cold water upon Peter\'s head.

Peter left the ram and swiftly retreated.

Both parties were by this time lost to respect of consequences. Into Peter\'s mind there suddenly intruded Shakespeare\'s vision of himself.
"... And at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment."

Fire! Obviously this was the retort.

Nothing in the world burns so fiercely as a well-dried bundle of straw. Within half a minute of the match there was literally a roar of flame, ascending into the crevices of Miranda\'s breach. She rushed into the smoke, swayed, and leaped blindly into her father\'s marrow-bed.

Her father\'s marrows had been tenderly nursed to the threshold of perfection. It was a portion of his routine to come into the garden after breakfast to inspect, feel, weigh in his hands, and liberally to discourse upon marrows. But nothing at that moment could sober Miranda. She did not care.

Peter was for the moment awed into inaction by a fire which burned more rapidly than he had intended; but he climbed at last upon the wall, saw Miranda prone among the marrows, and,[Pg 10] surging with conquest, leaped furiously upon her.

Peter was more complicated than Miranda. Miranda did not yet know that she had ruined her father\'s marrows. She was mercifully made to feel and to know one thing at a time; and at this moment she felt that the only thing in the world that mattered was to kill Peter.

But Peter realised in mid-air that he, too, would soon be standing amid extended ruins of the marrow-bed. His moment of indecision was fatal. Spreading his legs, to avoid a particularly fine vegetable, he fell headlong. Miranda was swiftly upon him, and they rolled among the shoots and blossoms. Peter forgot his scruples. He drew the dagger at his belt, and stabbed.

Triumph was stillborn. He felt himself suddenly lifted from the marrow-bed, and was next aware of some vigorous blows indelicately placed.

Mrs. Smith had returned from marketing, and looked for her daughter. The fire was not difficult to perceive; it was roaring to heaven. Nor was Miranda easily overlooked, for she was in her death-agony.

Miranda calmly stood by, waiting until Mrs. Smith was free to deal with her. Miranda was always sensible. Her turn would come.

Mrs. Smith suddenly dropped Peter into the marrows, and turned the garden hose upon Peter\'s fire. Peter, scrambling to his feet, watched her with dry, contemptuous eyes. The fire was furiously crackling, shooting up spark and[Pg 11] flame. It was beautiful and splendid. Peter found himself wondering in his humiliation how Mrs. Smith could so callously extinguish it.

"I never saw such children," said Mrs. Smith. "I don\'t know what your father will say, Miranda."

Mrs. Smith was a hard-working wife. She had no time for thought or imagination. She dealt with Miranda, and children generally, by rote. "Mischief" was something that children loved, for which they were punished. It was recognised as the sort of thing serious people avoided.

"I don\'t know what your father will say, Miranda." The phrase was automatic with Mrs. Smith. Miranda knew that her father would say less than her mother.

"It was my fire," said Peter, smouldering wickedly; "and they are my marrows."

"I wasn\'t talking to you," said Mrs. Smith; "you\'d better go away."

At this point Mrs. Paragon appeared above the wall.

"Peter," she said, "you might have burned the house down."

How different, Peter thought, was his mother from Mrs. Smith. His mother understood. Obviously it was wrong to burn the house down. He saw the point. His mother hadn\'t any theories about mischief.

Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Paragon exchanged some sentiments on the waywardness of children, and[Pg 12] the fire being quenched, Miranda was kept indoors for the rest of the day. Peter wistfully wandered between meals about the scene of his morning\'s adventure. He was burning with a sense of wrong. He admitted his fault. He had imperilled the house, and he had helped to destroy his neighbour\'s marrows. But he felt that Mrs. Smith\'s view of things was perverse, and that his humiliation had been out of all proportion to his offence. At the thought of Miranda\'s imprisonment he savagely flushed.

Peter ended the day in a softer mood. In the evening he had seen Mr. Smith inspecting the ruins of his marrow bed. He knew exactly what Mr. Smith was feeling. He remembered how he himself had felt when Mrs. Smith had made him destroy a platform he had built in the chestnut tree at the foot of the garden.

Peter dashed through the gap in the wall. Mr. Smith, a kind little man with the temperament of an angel, looked him sorrowfully in the face. Peter\'s contrition was manifest and perfectly understood.

"Bit of a mess, eh!" said Mr. Smith with an affectation that it did not matter.

"I\'m sorry," said Peter. "It\'s a shame. I\'m awfully sorry."

"That\'s all right," said Mr. Smith. Then he added cheerfully: "Your father will put it right."

Mr. Smith, as a gardener, was the pupil of Mr. Paragon. But though he had complete confidence[Pg 13] in his instructor, his belief that anyone would ever be able to make anything of the mangled vegetation between them was obviously pretended for Peter\'s sake; and Peter knew this as well as he.

Peter brushed away the necessary tears, and was about to obey an impulse to grip Mr. Smith\'s hand in sympathy, when Mrs. Smith called her husband sharply to supper.

Peter watched him disappear into the house with a sudden conviction that life was difficult. Already he heard the voice, thin and penetrating, of Mrs. Smith, raised in a discourse upon mischief.

Peter went in to his mother to tell her that he had apologised to Mr. Smith. He knew it would please her, and he also knew that his father, when he came home, would treat him with justice and understanding.