“When shall you be ready to rehearse?” I asked.

“Oh, presently,” said Philip, “there’s plenty of time yet.  It’s a great nuisance,” he added, “I’ll never have anything to do with theatricals again.  They make a perfect slave of one.”

“You’ve not slaved much, at any rate,” said Charles.

“You’d better not give me any of your cheek,” said Philip threateningly.

“We’ve done without him for a week, I don’t know why we shouldn’t do without him to-morrow,” muttered Alice from the corner where she was sewing gold paper stars on to the Enchanted Prince’s tunic.

“I wish you could,” growled Philip, who took the suggestion more quietly than I expected; “anybody could do the Dragon, there’s no acting in it!”

“I won’t,” said Charles, “Isobel gave me the Enchanted Prince or the Woolly Beast, and I shall stick to my part.”

“Could I do the Dragon?” asked Bobby, releasing his hot face from the folds of an old blue cloak lined with red, in which he was rehearsing his walk as a belated wayfarer.

“Certainly not,” said I, “you’re the Bereaved Father and the Faithful Attendant to begin with, and I hope you won’t muddle them.  And you’re Twelve Travellers as well, and the thunder, remember!”

“I don’t care how many I do, if only I can,” said Bobby, drawing his willing arm across his steaming forehead.  “I should like to have a fiery tail.”

“You can’t devour yourself once—­let alone twelve times,” said I sternly.  “Don’t be silly, Bob.”

It was not Bob I was impatient with in reality, it was Philip.

“If you really mean to desert the theatricals after all you promised, I would much rather try to do without you,” said I indignantly.

“Then you may!” retorted Philip.  “I wash my hands of it and of the whole lot of you, and of every nursery entertainment henceforward!” and he got the fragments of his gun together with much clatter.  But Charles had posted himself by the door to say his say, and to be ready to escape when he had said it.

“You’re ashamed of it, that’s it,” said he; “you want to sit among the grown-ups with a spy-glass, now you’ve got Apothecary Clinton’s son for a friend,”—­and after this brief and insulting summary of the facts, Charles vanished.  But Philip, white with anger, was too quick for him, and at the top of the back-stairs he dealt him such a heavy blow that Charles fell head-long down the first flight.

Alice and I flew to the rescue.  I lived in dread of Philip really injuring Charles some day, for his blows were becoming serious ones as he grew taller and stronger, and his self-control did not seem to wax in proportion.  And Charles’s temper was becoming very aggressive.  On this occasion, as soon as he had regained breath, and we found that no bones were broken, it was only by main force that we held him back from pursuing Philip.

“I’ll hit him—­I’ll stick to him,” he sobbed in his fury, shaking his head like a terrier, and doubling his fists.  But he was rather sick with the fall, and we made him lie down to recover himself, whilst Alice, Bobby, and I laid our heads together to plan a substitute for Philip in the Dragon.