William's family were going to the seaside for February. It was not an ideal month for the seaside, but William's father's doctor had ordered him a complete rest and change.
 
"We shall have to take William with us, you know," his wife had said as they discussed plans.
 
"Good heavens!" groaned Mr. Brown. "I thought it was to be a rest cure."
 
"Yes, but you know what he is," his wife urged. "I daren't leave him with anyone. Certainly not with Ethel. We shall have to take them both. Ethel will help with him."
 
Ethel was William's grown-up sister.
 
"All right," agreed her husband finally. "You can take all responsibility. I formally disown him from now till we get back. I don't care what trouble he lands you in. You know what he is and you deliberately take him away with me on a rest cure!"
 
"It can't be helped dear," said his wife mildly.
 
William was thrilled by the news. It was several years since he had been at the seaside.
 
"Will I be able to go swimmin'?"
 
"It won't be too cold! Well, if I wrap up warm, will I be able to go swimmin'?"
 
"Can I catch fishes?"
 
"Are there lots of smugglers smugglin' there?"
 
"Well, I'm only askin', you needn't get mad!"
 
One afternoon Mrs. Brown missed her best silver tray and searched the house high and low for it wildly, while dark suspicions of each servant in turn arose in her usually unsuspicious breast.
 
It was finally discovered in the garden. William had dug a large hole in one of the garden beds. Into the bottom of this he had fitted the tray and had lined the sides with bricks. He had then filled it with water, and taking off his shoes and stockings stepped up and down his narrow pool. He was distinctly aggrieved by Mrs. Brown's reproaches.
 
"Well, I was practisin' paddlin', ready for goin' to the seaside. I didn't mean to rune your tray. You talk as if I meant to rune your tray. I was only practisin' paddlin'."
 
At last the day of departure arrived. William was instructed to put his things ready on his bed, and his mother would then come and pack for him. He summoned her proudly over the balusters after about twenty minutes.
 
"I've got everythin' ready, Mother."
 
Mrs. Brown ascended to his room.
 
Upon his bed was a large pop-gun, a football, a dormouse in a cage, a punchball on a stand, a large box of "curios," and a buckskin which was his dearest possession and had been presented to him by an uncle from South Africa.
 
Mrs. Brown sat down weakly on a chair.
 
"You can't possibly take any of these things," she said faintly but firmly.
 
"Well, you said put my things on the bed for you to pack an' I've put them on the bed, an' now you say——"
 
"I meant clothes."
 
"Oh, clothes!" scornfully. "I never thought of clothes."
 
"Well, you can't take any of these things, anyway."
 
William hastily began to defend his collection of treasures.
 
"I mus' have the pop-gun 'cause you never know. There may be pirates an' smugglers down there, an' you can kill a man with a pop-gun if you get near enough and know the right place, an' I might need it. An' I must have the football to play on the sands with, an' the punchball to practise boxin' on, an' I must have the dormouse, 'cause—'cause to feed him, an' I must have this box of things and this skin to show to folks I meet down at the seaside, 'cause they're int'restin'."
 
But Mrs. Brown was firm, and William reluctantly yielded.
 
In a moment of weakness, finding that his trunk was only three-quarter filled by his things, she slipped in his beloved buckskin, while William himself put the pop-gun inside when no one was looking.
 
They had been unable to obtain a furnished house, so had to be content with a boarding house. Mr. Brown was eloquent on the subject.
 
"If you're deliberately turning that child loose into a boarding-house full, presumably, of quiet, inoffensive people, you deserve all you get. It's nothing to do with me. I'm going to have a rest cure. I've disowned him. He can do as he likes."
 
"It can't be helped, dear," said Mrs. Brown mildly.
 
Mr. Brown had engaged one of the huts on the beach chiefly for William's use, and William proudly furnished its floor with the buckskin.
 
"It was killed by my uncle," he announced to the small crowd of children at the door who had watched with interest his painstaking measuring of the floor in order to place his treasure in the exact centre. "He killed it dead—jus' like this."
 
William had never heard the story of the death of the buck, and therefore had invented one in which he had gradually come to confuse himself with his uncle in the rôle of hero.
 
"It was walkin' about an' I—he—met it. I hadn't got no gun, and it sprung at me an' I caught hold of its neck with one hand an' I broke off its horns with the other, an' I knocked it over. An' it got up an' ran at me—him—again, an' I jus' tripped it up with my foot an' it fell over again, an' then I jus' give it one big hit with my fist right on its head, an' it killed it an' it died!"
 
There was an incredulous gasp.
 
Then there came a clear, high voice from behind the crowd.
 
"Little boy, you are not telling the truth."
 
William looked up into a thin, spectacled face.
 
"I wasn't tellin' it to you," he remarked, wholly unabashed.
 
A little girl with dark curls took up the cudgels quite needlessly in William's defence.
 
"He's a very brave boy to do all that," she said indignantly. "So don't you go saying things to him."
 
"Well," said William, flattered but modest, "I didn't say I did it, did I? I said my uncle—well, partly my uncle."
 
Mr. Percival Jones looked down at him in righteous wrath.
 
"You're a very wicked little boy. I'll tell your father—er—I'll tell your sister."
 
For Ethel was approaching in the distance and Mr. Percival Jones was in no way loth to converse with her.
Mr. Percival Jones was a thin, pale, æsthetic would-be poet who lived and thrived on the admiration of the elderly ladies of his boarding-house, and had done so for the past ten years. Once he had published a volume of poems at his own expense. He lived at the same boarding-house as the Browns, and had seen Ethel in the distance to meals. He had admired the red lights in her dark hair and the blue of her eyes, and had even gone so far as to wonder whether she possessed the solid and enduring qualities which he would require of one whom in his mind he referred to as his "future spouse."
 
He began to walk down the beach with her.
 
"I should like to speak to you—er—about your brother, Miss Brown," he began, "if you can spare me the time, of course. I trust I do not er—intrude or presume. He is a charming little man but—er—I fear—not veracious. May I accompany you a little on your way? I am—er—much attracted to your—er—family. I—er—should like to know you all better. I am—er—deeply attached to your—er—little brother, but grieved to find that he does not—er—adhere to the truth in his statements. I—er—"
 
Miss Brown's blue eyes were dancing with merriment.
 
"Oh, don't you worry about William," she said. "He's awful. It's much best just to leave him alone. Isn't the sea gorgeous to-day?"
 
They walked along the sands.
 
Meanwhile William had invited his small defender into his hut.
 
"You can look round," he said graciously. "You've seen my skin what I—he—killed, haven't you? This is my gun. You put a cork in there and it comes out hard when you shoot it. It would kill anyone," impressively, "if you did it near enough to them and at the right place. An' I've got a dormouse, an' a punchball, an' a box of things, an' a football, but they wouldn't let me bring them," bitterly.
 
"It's a lovely skin," said the little girl. "What's your name?"
 
"William. What's yours?"
 
"Peggy."
 
"Well, let's be on a desert island, shall we? An' nothin' to eat nor anything, shall we? Come on."
 
She nodded eagerly.
 
"How lovely!"
 
They wandered out on to the promenade, and among a large crowd of passers-by bemoaned the lonely emptiness of the island and scanned the horizon for a sail. In the far distance on the cliffs could be seen the figures of Mr. Percival Jones and William's sister, walking slowly away from the town.
 
At last they turned towards the hut.
 
"We must find somethin' to eat," said William firmly. "We can't let ourselves starve to death."
 
"Shrimps?" suggested Peggy cheerfully.
 
"We haven't got nets," said William. "We couldn't save them from the wreck."
 
"Periwinkles?"
 
"There aren't any on this island. I know! Seaweed! An' we'll cook it."
 
"Oh, how lovely!"
 
He gathered up a handful of seaweed and they entered the hut, leaving a white handkerchief tied on to the door to attract the attention of any passing ship. The hut was provided with a gas ring and William, disregarding his family's express injunction, lit this and put on a saucepan filled with water and seaweed.
 
"We'll pretend it's a wood fire," he said. "We couldn't make a real wood fire out on the prom. They'd stop us. So we'll pretend this is. An' we'll pretend we saved a saucepan from the wreck."
 
After a few minutes he took off the pan and drew out a long green strand.
 
"You eat it first," he said politely.
 
The smell of it was not pleasant. Peggy drew back.
 
"Oh, no, you first!"
 
"No, you," said William nobly. "You look hungrier than me."
 
She bit off a piece, chewed it, shut her eyes and swallowed.
 
"Now you," she said with a shade of vindictiveness in her voice. "You're not going to not have any."
 
William took a mouthful and shivered.
 
"I think it's gone bad," he said critically.
 
Peggy's rosy face had paled.
 
"I'm going home," she said suddenly.
 
"You can't go home on a desert island," said William severely.
 
"Well, I'm going to be rescued then," she said.
 
"I think I am, too," said William.
 
It was lunch time when William arrived at the boarding-house. Mr. Percival Jones had moved his place so as to be nearer Ethel. He was now convinced that she was possessed of every virtue his future "spouse" could need. He conversed brightly and incessantly during the meal. Mr. Brown grew restive.
 
"The man will drive me mad," he said afterwards. "Bleating away! What's he bleating about anyway? Can't you stop him bleating, Ethel? You seem to have influence. Bleat! Bleat! Bleat! Good Lord! And me here for a rest cure!"
 
At this point he was summoned to the telephone and returned distraught.
 
"It's an unknown female," he said. "She says that a boy of the name of William from this boarding-house has made her little girl sick by forcing her to eat seaweed. She says it's brutal. Does anyone know I'm here for a rest cure? Where is the boy? Good heavens! Where is the boy?"
 
But William, like Peggy, had retired from the world for a space. He returned later on in the afternoon, looking pale and chastened. He bore the reproaches of his family in stately silence.
 
Mr. Percival Jones was in great evidence in the drawing-room.
 
"And soon—er—soon the—er—Spring will be with us once more," he was saying in his high-pitched voice as he leant back in his chair and joined the tips of his fingers together. "The Spring—ah—the Spring! I have a—er—little effort I—er—composed on—er—the Coming of Spring—I—er—will read to you some time if you will—ah—be kind enough to—er—criticise—ah—impartially."
 
"Criticise!" they chorused. "It will be above criticism. Oh, do read it to us, Mr. Jones."
 
"I will—er—this evening." His eyes wandered to the door, hoping and longing for his beloved's entrance. But Ethel was with her father at a matinée at the Winter Gardens and he looked and longed in vain. In spite of this, however, the springs of his eloquence did not run dry, and he held forth ceaselessly to his little circle of admirers.
 
"The simple—ah—pleasures of nature. How few of us—alas!—have the—er—gift of appreciating them rightly. This—er—little seaside hamlet with its—er—sea, its—er—promenade, its—er—Winter Gardens! How beautiful it is! How few appreciate it rightly."
 
Here William entered and Mr. Percival Jones broke off abruptly. He disliked William.
 
"Ah! here comes our little friend. He looks pale. Remorse, my young friend? Ah, beware of untruthfulness. Beware of the beginnings of a life of lies and deception." He laid a hand on William's head and cold shivers ran down William's spine. "'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever,' as the poet says." There was murder in William's heart.
 
At that minute Ethel entered.
 
"No," she snapped. "I sat next a man who smelt of bad tobacco. I hate men who smoke bad tobacco."
 
Mr. Jones assumed an expression of intense piety.
 
"I may boast," he said sanctimoniously, "that I have never thus soiled my lips with drink or smoke ..."
 
There was an approving murmur from the occupants of the drawing-room.
 
William had met his father in the passage outside the drawing-room. Mr. Brown was wearing a hunted expression.
 
"Can I go into the drawing-room?&............