Margot:  “Don’t be ridiculous!  What do you propose doing?”

Peter (trying to kiss my hands which I had purposely put behind my back):  “I propose having a chat with Inspector Wood and then with Hastings Appleby.”

Margot:  “How do you know Inspector Wood, as you call him?”

Peter:  “He did a friend of mine a very good turn once.”

Margot:  “What sort of turn?”

Peter:  “Sugar Candy insulted me at the Turf and I was knocking him into a jelly in Brick Street, when Wood intervened and saved his life.  I can assure you he would do anything in the world for me and I’ll make it all right!  He shall have a handsome present.”

Margot:  “How vulgar!  Having a brawl in Brick Street!  How did you come to be in the East-end?”

Peter:  “East-end!  Why, it’s next to Down Street, out of Piccadilly.”

Margot:  “It’s very wrong to bribe the police, Peter!”

Peter:  “I’m not going to bribe him, governess!  I’m going to give him my Airedale terrier.”

Margot:  “What!  That brute that killed the lady’s lap-dog?”

Peter:  “The very same!”

Margot:  “God help poor Wood!”

Peter was so elated with this shattering escapade that a week after—­on the occasion of another row, in which I pointed out that he was the most selfish man in the world—­I heard him whistling under my bedroom window at midnight.  Afraid lest he should wake my parents, I ran down in my dressing-gown to open the front door, but nothing would induce the chain to move.  It was a newly acquired habit of the servants, started by Henry Hill from the night he had barred out the police.  Being a hopeless mechanic and particularly weak in my fingers, I gave it up and went to the open window in the library.  I begged him to go away, as nothing would induce me to forgive him, and I told him that my papa had only just retired to bed.

Peter, unmoved, ordered me to take the flower-pots off the window-sill, or he would knock them down and make a horrible noise, which would wake the whole house.  After I had refused to do this, he said he would very likely break his neck when he jumped, as clearing the pots would mean hitting his head against the window frame.  Fearing an explosion of temper, I weakly removed the flower-pots and watched his acrobatic feat with delight.

We had not been talking on the sofa for more than five minutes when I heard a shuffle of feet outside the library-door.  I got up with lightning rapidity and put out the two candles on the writing-table with the palms of my hands, returning noiselessly to Peter’s side on the sofa, where we sat in black darkness, The door opened and my father came in holding a bedroom candle in his hand; he proceeded to walk stealthily round the room, looking at his pictures.  The sofa on which we were sitting was in the window and