This was easy work.  Before Billy could say, “Jack Robinson!” four pairs of eager hands had accumulated snow-balls enough for a sham battle.  In the meantime, Billy had decorated the doorway with two tall, round pillars.  He added a pointed roof to the house and trimmed it with snow-balls, all along the edge.

“Now I guess we’d better have a snow-man to live in this mansion while we’re about it,” Billy suggested briskly.  “Each of you roll up an arm or a leg while I make the body.”

Billy placed the legs in the corner opposite the snow-house.  He lifted on to them the big round body which he himself had rolled.  Putting the arms on was not so easy.  He worked for a long time before he found the angle at which they would stick.

Everybody took a hand at the head.  Maida contributed some dulse for the hair, slitting it into ribbons, which she stuck on with glue.  Rosie found a broken clothes-pin for the nose.  The round, smooth coals that Dicky discovered in the coal-hod made a pair of expressive black eyes.  Arthur cut two sets of teeth from orange peel and inserted them in the gash that was the mouth.  When the head was set on the shoulders, Billy disappeared into the house for a moment.  He came back carrying a suit-case.  “Shut your eyes, every manjack of you,” he ordered.  “You’re not to see what I do until it’s done.  If I catch one of you peeking, I’ll confine you in the snow-house for five minutes.”

The W.M.N.T.’s shut their eyes tight and held down the lids with resolute fingers.  But they kept their ears wide open.  The mysterious work on which Billy was engaged was accompanied by the most tantalizing noises.

“Oh, Billy, can’t I please look,” Maida begged, jiggling up and down.  “I can’t stand it much longer.”

“In a minute,” Billy said encouragingly.  The mysterious noises kept up.  “Now,” Billy said suddenly.

Four pairs of eyes leaped open.  Four pairs of lips shrieked their delight.  Indeed, Maida and Rosie laughed so hard that they finally rolled in the snow.

Billy had put an old coat on the snow-man’s body.  He had put a tall hat—­Arthur called it a “stove-pipe”—­on the snow-man’s head.  He had put an old black pipe between the snow-man’s grinning, orange-colored teeth.  Gloves hung limply from the snow-man’s arm-stumps and to one of them a cane was fastened.  Billy had managed to give the snow-man’s head a cock to one side.  Altogether he looked so spruce and jovial that it was impossible not to like him.

“Mr. Chumpleigh, ladies and gentlemen,” Billy said.  “Some members of the W.M.N.T., Mr. Chumpleigh.”

And Mr. Chumpleigh, he was until—­until—­

Billy stayed that night to dinner.  They had just finished eating when an excited ring of the bell announced Rosie.

“Oh, Granny,” she said, “the boys have made a most wonderful coast down Halliwell Street and Aunt Theresa says I can go coasting until nine o’clock if you’ll let Maida go too.  I thought maybe you would, especially if Billy comes along.”