Miss Ethel marched ahead carrying the candle, and so cupping it with her hand that the light fell full on her round, horn-rimmed spectacles, making these look like gigantic eyes.

“I’m sorry, girls,” said she, throwing open a door, “this is the best I can do for you — every other room’s full. But I know you won’t mind turning in together. May’s such a shrimp that you can put her between you and never know she’s there.”

Dutifully the three who followed at her heels chorused: “Oh, not at all,” “We shall manage,” “Very good of you to have us, Miss Ethel,” as instructed by their respective Mammas.

But once the door had shut on their hostess they gathered round the bed — a narrow half-tester — in which they were expected to lie three in a row, and let their real feelings out.

“The old toad! Playing us such a scurvy trick!”

“On such a hot night, tool”

“And when she wrote she’d have heaps of room!”

“It’s those Waugh girls from Bendigo that ‘ve done it. THEIR father’s a judge! But anything’s good enough for us.”

“I wish I hadn’t come,” piped Patty, the youngest, a short, fat girl of eleven.

“Oh, you!— with your bulk you’re safe for the lion’s share. But what did the old hag mean by her cheek about me?” snapped May, who had come to the age of desiring roundnesses. “A shrimp, indeed!”

“Don’t know I’m sure,” said thirteen-year-old Tetta, not quite truthfully. (May’s was just a case of the “girls from Bendigo” over again.) Tetta was getting rid of her clothes at top speed, peeling off her stockings, leaving one here, one there, her combinations on the floor where they fell. Then, holding her nightdress like a sail above her, she shot her arms into the sleeves, and was ready for bed while Patty was still conscientiously twisting a toothbrush round her gums, and May had got no further than loosening the buttons of her frock.

“Tetta!— you haven’t done your teeth . . . or anything.”

“Don’t want to. And I’m giving my teeth a rest. A dentist told some one I know it wore teeth out if you were always brushing them,” gave back Tetta easily.

The “Lazy Liar!” this evoked was cut through by her shrill: “Oh Lord, girls, FEATHERS!” as she stooped to examine the build of the bed. A further discovery, however, Tetta kept to herself. This was that the bed had a distinct slope, out from the centre and down at the sides — she tried each in turn. And having let a few seconds elapse, for fear the others had noticed her wrigglings, she said mildly: “Look here, Mabs, if you like I’ll take the middle. I don’t mind being a bit crushed.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” retorted May suspiciously, suspending her hair-brush. “I know what it means, my dear . . . when you’re so willing to oblige.” May was ratty with herself for being behind-hand — even that stupid Pat had raced her. But to go to bed PROPERLY meant almost as much work as getting up in the morning.

“Well, for goodness’ sake, put some biff into it. The mean bit of candle she’s given us won’t last for ever.

“No, I promised my mother to brush my hair twenty times every night and morning, and I’m not going to break my word for anyone,” said May dourly; and pounded away with upraised arm. At which young Patty, who in her efforts to come in second had rather scamped the prescribed “folding” of her clothes, suffered a pang of conscience, and turned back to refold them. But Tetta thought: though she brushed it a hundred times it would never be anything but bristly. Yes, that was just what it was like the bristles in a brush.

Now she and Pat lay stretched out, a sheet drawn over them, a hump of feathers between. Oh, it was a shabby pretence at a “double”— why, there was really hardly room for two. And when at last May came to join them — she had gargled her throat and cleaned her nails (just as if she was going to a party)— the rumpus began.

For Tetta said: “Blow out the candle first.” This stood on the dressing-table, and it would have fallen to her, who lay on that side, to rise and extinguish it. May, the goose, doing as she was told, had then to climb over and in between them in the dark. There was a moment of wild confusion: dozens of legs, a whole army of them, seemed to be trampling and kicking in an attempt to sort themselves out. Tetta had taken a grip of the head-curtain, and so kept her balance, but Patty, unprepared, found nothing to hold to on the bare side of the bed, and, as May finally and determinedly squeezed herself in, slid to the floor with a cry and a thump.

“You pig!” from Tetta. “You did that on purpose.”

“Well, what next I wonder! . . . after you two had taken all the room. Anyhow, now you’ll just HAVE to get up and make a light again.”

Grumblingly Tetta swung out her feet and groped her unknown way. “Now where has that table gone to? Oh, DAMN!” For, coming suddenly and unexpectedly upon it, her elbow caught the candlestick and sent this flying. There was a crash; and the candle could be heard rolling over the bare boards.

“Now you’ve done it, you clumsy ass! Ten to one old Ethel ‘ll come pouncing in on us.”

“If I get a bit of china in my foot it’ll be me who pounces.” Tetta was on her knees, cautiously fumbling for the matches. These found and one struck, the candle was recovered; but the candlestick lay in fragments.

“Spill some grease on the floor and stick the candle to it,” suggested May.

With some difficulty Tetta contrived this hold, clutching her nightgown to her out of reach of the flame. Then she crossed to the other side of the bed to see to Patty, who still lay where she had fallen, snivelling over a bruised arm and a hefty bump on the forehead.

As there was no butter handy, Tetta poured water into the basin, soaked a sponge and held it to the wounded place, to keep it from swelling — and over this the floor got rather wet and messy, for the half-burnt, guttering candle, some three inches high, shed its meagre circlet Of light only on the opposite side of the room — then prodded the bruised arm to try for a broken bone. Patty was QUITE sure she had.

“Nonsense, Pat, it’s only been your funny-bone,” and Tetta rose to her feet.

But the sight of May sprawling meanwhile at her ease in the centre of the bed was too much for her. “It’s all your greedy fault, pushing and shoving like that so that you can lie on your back. Well, you can’t! There’s only one way to lie and that’s spoons — on our same sides. Now then, Pat!”

But Pat whimpered, if she had to sleep on the outside she’d never sleep at all, she’d always be expecting the whole night to fall out again. She’d rather lie on the floor.

“Well, why not? That’s quite a good idea,” struck in May brightly. “Then we should all have room.”

“I wouldn’t, Pat,” said Tetta emphatically, with another glance at May’s luxurious recumbency. “At least not if you don’t want tarantulas crawling over you in the night . . . and perhaps centipedes, too. There’s sure to be squads about this dirty old house.”

Before she finished speaking, Patty had leapt on to the bed, her bare feet drawn up out of danger’s way.

“Now then Mabs milady, shunt! You’ve just GOT to let her in the middle. Are you ready?”— and with the same breath Tetta puffed out the candle and sprang to secure what little space was left.

With due care they arranged themselves, back fitted to front; and for a few seconds, tightly wedged though they were, it seemed as if there might be peace.

Then May said: “My mother always says it’s dangerous to go to sleep on your left-hand side. It makes your heart swell up. And you could die in the night.”

There was a faint squeal from Patty. “Here, let me . . . I’m not going to”— and the bed rocked under her determined efforts to turn to her right.

“Well, if she does, we’ve all got to. ARE you ready?” sighed Tetta once more.

Gingerly and in unison they heaved.

But: “Tetta, you’ve taken every bit of sheet!” from May.

“I haven’t!”

“You have!” And the sheet, reduced to a rope, was tugged violently to and fro. “If you think I’m going to lie with my back all bare. . . . It’s bad enough to have it hanging out over the edge.”

“The answer to that is, you shouldn’t have such a big behind.”

“It’s not! I haven’t!” cried May, justly indignant. “It’s not a scrap bigger than your own. Now if you had Pat’s running into you, you MIGHT talk! Her’s is simply enormous; it reaches down to my legs.”

“Oh, it DOESN’T!” wailed Patty, on the verge of tears again. “It’s NOT true — it’s NOT enormous.”

“Oh, shut up, you blubberer! What’s it matter if it is?” snapped Tetta, losing patience. “And anyhow the Turks admire them.” But the Turks were heathens, and Patty was not consoled. She lay chewing over her injuries, to which another was now added: “It’s no good . . . I simply can’t . . . I’m suffocating,” she said in a weak voice. “My head’s right down in the crack between the pillows. I haven’t ANY of my own.”

“Here, take half mine,” said Tetta, and shoved it towards her. May, who liked a pillow to herself, gave hers a hasty pull, which over-shot the mark. Down and out it slid, she, attempting a rescue, after it. “Ooh! I’m standing in water. The whole floor’s swimming.”

Said Tetta when order was once more restored: “The only thing to do ‘ll be to hold on. Here. Pat, you put your arm over me and round my stomach, and May hers round you. Th............