“But she must be dressed like a man,” said I; “there never was a female Guy Fawkes.  The people would laugh at us.”

“So much the better,” said he; “that is just what we want.  I like something original, out of the common way.  Now, a female Guy Fawkes is a thing that few persons ever saw, or even heard of.”

“But shall we not be taken up,” said I, “perhaps put in prison, and get ourselves into a hobble?”

“Well, what if we do?  But we shall not do that.  I am sure it is all right enough.  But, however, to be quite certain, if you like we will ask Ephraim Quidd.  You know, his father is a lawyer, and he will tell us in a minute.  So when we go to school we will ask him, shall we?”

“With all my heart,” said I. And so with that we began to dress ourselves, and went downstairs to breakfast.  I was so full of the matter that I sat and thought of it all the time I was eating my food; and at last my imagination painted the old woman sitting in a chair, calling out, “I am no guy!  I am no guy!” the mob laughing, and the boys hurrahing so vividly that I burst into a fit of laughter myself.

“Why, Peter,” said my father, “’what is the matter now?”

Instead of telling him I continued to laugh, till at last he grew very angry with me, and ordered me from the breakfast-table.  I then took my hat and bag, and went off to school.  Simon Sapskull—­for that was my cousin’s name—­soon followed me.

When he came up with me he said: 

“I thought what you were laughing at.  It will be good fun.  Let us make haste and see Quidd before he goes in.  It will be good fun, won’t it?”

And here Master Simon jumped and capered about with delight.

When we came to the schoolyard there were several boys assembled and Quidd among them.  Simon immediately ran up to him.

“Quidd,” said he, “I want to ask you a question.  You know the law, do you not?  Your father is the town clerk, and you ought.”

“I do know the law,” said Quidd.  “Have I not been bred to it?  And is not my father to be made Recorder next year?”

“Well, then, answer me this,” said Simon.  “Is there any law against seizing an old woman for a guy?”

The next morning Sapskull and myself, with Thomas Hardy and half a dozen other boys, met with a view to talk about the intended exploit.  We withdrew to the backyard of the schoolroom, and there, in a corner where we thought we could not be overheard, we began to plot against the liberty of Dame Clackett.

Hardy was one of the rarest boys for making fireworks I ever knew in my life.  He had bought a book called “Every Boy his own Squib-Maker,” in which were directions for making squibs, crackers, rockets, Roman candles, serpents, slow fire, blue lights, and other descriptions of fireworks.  This he nearly knew by heart.  Sapskull said: 

“Look in your book and see if there is not in it how to make a guy.”