“Come, come, Panky, no more of that.”

“Of course I do not doubt that it was an accident; nevertheless if your study had not been accidentally burned, on the very night the clothes were entrusted to you for earnest, patient, careful, scientific investigation—­and Yram very nearly burned too—­we should never have carried it through.  See what work we had to get the King to allow the way in which the clothes were worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma.  What a pity it is that the clothes were not burned before the King’s tailor had copied them.”

Hanky laughed heartily enough.  “Yes,” he said, “it was touch and go.  Why, I wonder, could not the Queen have put the clothes on a dummy that would show back from front?  As soon as it was brought into the council chamber the King jumped to a conclusion, and we had to bundle both dummy and Yram out of the royal presence, for neither she nor the King would budge an inch.

Even Panky smiled.  “What could we do?  The common people almost worship Yram; and so does her husband, though her fair-haired eldest son was born barely seven months after marriage.  The people in these parts like to think that the Sunchild’s blood is in the country, and yet they swear through thick and thin that he is the Mayor’s duly begotten offspring—­Faugh!  Do you think they would have stood his being jobbed into the rangership by any one else but Yram?”

My father’s feelings may be imagined, but I will not here interrupt the Professors.

“Well, well,” said Hanky; “for men must rob and women must job so long as the world goes on.  I did the best I could.  The King would never have embraced Sunchildism if I had not told him he was right; then, when satisfied that we agreed with him, he yielded to popular prejudice and allowed the question to remain open.  One of his Royal Professors was to wear the clothes one way, and the other the other.”

“My way of wearing them,” said Panky, “is much the most convenient.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Hanky warmly.  On this the two Professors fell out, and the discussion grew so hot that my father interfered by advising them not to talk so loud lest another ranger should hear them.  “You know,” he said, “there are a good many landrail bones lying about, and it might be awkward.”

The Professors hushed at once.  “By the way,” said Panky, after a pause, “it is very strange about those footprints in the snow.  The man had evidently walked round the statues two or three times, as though they were strange to him, and he had certainly come from the other side.”

“It was one of the rangers,” said Hanky impatiently, “who had gone a little beyond the statues, and come back again.”

“Then we should have seen his footprints as he went.  I am glad I measured them.”

“There is nothing in it; but what were your measurements?”

“Eleven inches by four and a half; nails on the soles; one nail missing on the right foot and two on the left.”  Then, turning to my father quickly, he said, “My man, allow me to have a look at your boots.”