A tray on which were three glasses of cold milk and three biscuits was always placed on the schoolroom table punctually at eight o’clock, the twins’ bedtime. Emmeline, who was allowed to sit up till a quarter to nine, usually let her supper wait on the table till then; to-night, however, she chose to retire with the younger ones.

‘She must be tired with the Fair and all the excitement,’ thought Aunt Grace, little suspecting all the plotting and planning that was going on at that moment in the schoolroom.

‘The question is, how we are to get the milk out to him without either Aunt Grace or the servants hearing us,’ Emmeline was saying. ‘If we go out at the side-door they’ll hear in the kitchen, and if we go out at the front-door Aunt Grace will hear in the drawing-room. I think on the whole the side-door will be the safest, though, for Aunt Grace has such awfully quick ears. But either way it’s very risky.’

‘I know what!’ exclaimed Micky. ‘Do you remember[90] that American chap who was in a French prison, and who kept his gaolers so amused with his stories that the other people escaped while they weren’t looking? Well, that’s what Kitty and I will do. We’ll go to the kitchen and tell Jane and Cook all the funniest stories we can think of, and while they are laughing, Emmeline, you can creep out on tiptoe with Diamond Jubilee’s supper.

Emmeline felt a little doubtful as to whether Micky’s stories would prove quite as absorbing as the ‘American chap’s’ had done, but she could not think of a better plan. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘you go down to the kitchen now, and I’ll bring down the supper in a minute or two, when you’ve had time to get them interested.’

‘Now, Master Micky, it’s quite time you were going to bed.’ Emmeline heard Jane’s voice saying, as she crept past the kitchen-door two minutes later. ‘We’re having our supper, and we don’t want you and Miss Kitty bothering here now.’

‘But Jane, he’s going to tell you such a funny story!’ pleaded Kitty.

‘It’s high time he was dreaming funny dreams instead of telling funny stories,’ said Jane severely. ‘Go to bed now, Master Micky, there’s a good boy.’

‘You’ll have to turn me out of the room then, said Micky—a remark which was promptly followed[91] by sounds of a rush and scramble. Emmeline knew that Micky was being chased round and round the kitchen-table—a process which involved far more noise than any amount of funny stories. Decidedly Micky was a person of resource.

Emmeline put down her tray cautiously and stretched out her hand to the door-handle. Horrors! The wretched door would not open, however much she turned the handle. It was locked, and bolted top and bottom!

Emmeline was in despair. She would have to fetch a chair in order to reach the top bolt, and it was hopeless to think of doing this, unlocking and unbolting the door, running out to Diamond Jubilee and making him gulp down the milk, coming back with the tray and the empty glasses, rebolting and relocking the door, and taking away the chair, all in the space of time that Micky was being chased round the kitchen-table! No, clearly there was nothing for it but just to go upstairs again.

It was lucky that she decided as she did, for she and her tray had barely disappeared up the back stairs when the kitchen-door was flung open and a very red-faced Micky was pushed out into the passage.

‘I’ll tell your aunt of you if you don’t go upstairs this minute!’ Jane’s parting shot made the little boy retreat.

[92]

‘Why, Emmeline, you have been quick!’ he exclaimed, when he came back into the schoolroom and found her there. ‘Oh, I see’—in a disappointed voice, as he caught sight of the glasses still full of milk—‘you haven’t even started.’

‘Yes, I have,’ and she ruefully explained what had happened. ‘I can’t think what made Jane take it into her head to lock up so early just this one evening,’ she concluded. ‘She hardly ever does it before they go to bed.’

‘She has put the shutters up in the dining-room, too,’ remarked Micky. ‘I went in there just now because I thought we might manage to open the dining-room window and get the things out that way.’

‘I don’t think we could have opened that window anyhow; it’s so very stiff and heavy,’ said Emmeline; ‘and, of course, if the shutters are up it’s no good thinking of it. Really, Jane is very tiresome.’

‘She’s the annoyingest person I know,’ declared Kitty in an aggrieved voice. ‘Micky was telling her the loveliest story, and she wouldn’t listen—not one little bit. It was awfully stupid of her—wasn’t it, Emmeline?—besides being so unpolite.’

Emmeline was too much worried over the question of Diamond Jubilee’s supper to give much thought to Jane’s lack of manners.

‘What are we to do?’ she asked in despair.[93] ‘It’s not only that he’ll be so hungry, but it’ll be breaking a promise if we don’t take him some supper.’

‘I’ll jump out of this window, and then you can throw out the glasses for me to catch, like the man at the circus,’ suggested Micky.

‘I dare say! And the glasses would all get broken and the milk spilt,’ said Emmeline, dismissing the idea with scorn. ‘But we might throw the biscuits out like that. That’s what we’ll have to do, I suppose, though it’s a great pity, as we can’t save the milk for his breakfast.’

‘I’ve thought of a plan!’ cried Kitty suddenly; and off she rushed, returning a moment later with an empty hot-water can.

‘Whatever is the use of that?’ asked Emmeline, quite puzzled.

‘It’ll be the lift for the glasses to go down in,’ explained Kitty, who was busy untying her sash. ‘My sash will be like the rope to let it down with.’

The story games at which they were constantly playing had made them all very clever at putting things to other uses than those for which they were naturally intended, so both Micky and Emmeline understood directly what Kitty meant.

‘It’s a splendid idea!’ said Emmeline warmly.

Kitty flushed with pleasure as she bent down, and began tying one end of her sash in a knot round the spout of the hot-water can.

[94]

‘You’d better let me do that,’ said Micky eagerly; ‘girls always make grannies.’ Sailor knots were a new and carefully acquired accomplishment to Micky himself, so it was with much satisfaction that he undid Kitty’s rather feeble attempt, and bound her sash with two beautiful knots, one on the spout and the other on the handle of the hot-water can. ‘There! That’ll do champion!’ he pronounced as he finished.

The next business was to put two of the glasses and one of the biscuits into the hot-water can. It had struck Emmeline while Micky was tying his knots that they could, after all, save the contents of the third glass for to-morrow morning’s breakfast, since she and Kitty could use the same tooth-glass just for once. That being so, one of the biscuits might well be spared for to-night’s supper.

As soon as the water-can lift was ready packed, Micky clambered up on to the schoolroom window-sill and jumped out, landing right on the top of Mr. Brown’s favourite double chrysanthemum. The poor plant did not like it at all, but nobody paid any attention to it. Conspirators cannot be expected to trouble about such trifles as chrysanthemums, even if they are intended for flower-shows.

Afterwards the can was slowly and carefully lowered by Emmeline. Micky lifted up the lid[95] as soon as he had it safely in his hands, and all three children were delighted when it turned out that neither of the glasses had been upset during their descent, and only a little of the milk spilt.

‘I shall jump out, too, and help Micky take Diamond Jubilee his supper,’ announced Kitty, suddenly; and she was just preparing to do so when Emmeline caught hold of her sleeve to stop her, thereby letting drop the sash, which was her only connecting-link with the can.

‘There now!’ she cried angrily. ‘See what you’ve made me do by being so silly! It’ll all be found out now, for I don’t know however we are to get the can up again.’

‘I’m so dreadfully sorry, Emmeline,’ said poor Kitty in a piteous voice.

She felt, as she told Micky afterwards, ‘a mixture of a donkey and a traitor,’ and that is not a cheery feeling.

Micky set the can down on the ground and rubbed his head thoughtfully. He always did this when he was perplexed, not because it helped him, but because he had an impression that it was the correct thing to do. Suddenly he bounded like an excited indiarubber ball.

‘I’ve got it!’ he cried. ‘What donkeys we are! All I’ll have to do is to untie the knots, and roll the sash into a little ball to throw up to[96] you; then you’ll have to let the two ends down, and I’ll tie the knots again, and you’ll be able to draw up the can as easy as easy. Do you see?’

‘Oh yes!’ said Emmeline in a tone of great relief; ‘you are a good boy, Micky, to have thought of that. But make haste now and take Diamond Jubilee his supper; someone may come in any moment. I’m sorry I was cross, Kitty,’ she added, as Micky flitted across the lawn at a speed which was risky considering that he was carrying two tumblers of milk, and disappeared among the dark bushes round the summer-house, ‘but it was silly of you to think of jumping down. However would you have got back again? You couldn’t have swarmed up the water-pipe.’

‘I would have been able to if you hadn’t stopped me practising the other day,’ said Kitty, rather resentfully. It was her one grievance that she was not always allowed to follow Micky in his gymnastic feats. ‘When I’m grown up,’ she added, ‘I mean to have six daughters, and all the lessons they shall do will be learning to swarm up water-pipes!’

‘Hark! I do believe that’s someone coming!’ said Emmeline, looking frightened.

Footsteps were certainly mounting the back-stairs. Nearer and nearer they came, and Emmeline’s heart began to thump so hard that she could[97] almost hear it. What if it should be Aunt Grace herself?

The footsteps passed by the schoolroom door without pausing, and Emmelin............