However, the fun was irresistible, and the only wonder was that the secret was kept for the whole day, while Allen moulded in the studio two things that might pass for ass’s ears, and secreted cement enough to fasten them on.  The performance elicited such a rapture of applause that the door had to be fast locked against the incursion of the little ones to learn the cause of the mirth.  When Mother Carey asked at tea what they were having so much fun about they only blushed, sniggled, and wriggled in their chairs in a way that would have alarmed a more suspicious mother, but only made her conclude that some delightful surprise was preparing, for which she must keep her curiosity in abeyance.

“Nor was she dismayed by the creaking of boots on the attic stairs before dawn, and when the boys appeared at breakfast with hellebore, blue periwinkle, and daffodils, clear indications of where they had been, she only exclaimed—-

“Forbidden sweets!  O you naughty boys!” when ecstatic laughter alone replied.

She heard no more till the afternoon, when the return from school was notified by shouts from Allen, and the boys rushed up to the verandah where he was reading.

“I say! here’s a go.  He thinks Richards has done it, and has written to Ogilvie to have him expelled.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me himself.”

“But Ogilvie has too much sense to expel him!”

“Of course, but there’s worse, for old Barnes means to turn off his father.  Nothing will persuade the old fellow that it wasn’t his work, for he says that it must be a grammar-school boy.”

“Does Dicky Bird guess?”

“Yes, but he’s all right, as close as wax.  He says he was sure no one but ourselves could have done it, for nobody else could have thought of such things or made them either.”

“Then he has seen it?”

“Yes, and he was fit to kill himself with laughing, though his father and old Barnes were mad with rage and fury.  His father believes him, but old Barnes believes neither of them, and swears his father shall go.”

“We shall have to split on ourselves,” elegantly observed Johnny.

“We had better tell Mother Carey.  Hullo! here she is, inside the window.”

“Didn’t you know that,” said Allen.

Therefore the boys, leaning and sprawling round her, half in and half out of the window, told the story, the triumph overcoming all compunction, as they described the morning raid, the successful scaling of the park-wall, the rush across the sward, the silence of the garden, the hoisting up of Allen to fasten on the ears, and the wonderful charms of the figure when it wore them and held a golden apple in its hand.  “Right of Way,” and “Let us in,” had been written in black on all the pedestals.

“It is a peculiar way of recommending your admission,” said Caroline.

“That’s Rob’s doing,” said Allen.  “I couldn’t look after him while I was gilding the apple or I would have stopped him.  He half blacked the little boy on the swan too—­”