“And broke the swan’s bill off, worse luck,” added Johnny.

“Yes,” said Allen, “that was altogether low and unlucky!  I meant the old fellow simply to have thought that his statue had grown a pair of ears in the night.”

“And what would have been the use of that?” said Robin.

“What was the use of all your scrawling,” said Allen, “except just to show it was not the natural development of statues.”

“Yes,” added Bobus, “it all came of you that poor Dickey Bird is suspected and it is all blown up.”

“As if he would have thought it was done by nobody,” said Rob.

“Why not?” said Jock.  “I’m sure I’d never wonder to see ass’s ears growing on you.  I think they are coming.”

There was a shout of laughter as Rob hastily put up his hands to feel for them, adding in his slow, gruff voice—-"A statue ain’t alive.”

“It made a fool of the whole matter,” proceeded Bobus.  “I wish we’d kept a lout like you out of it.”

“Hush, hush, Bobus,” put in his mother, “no matter about that.  The question is what is to be done about poor Mr. Richards and Alfred.”

“Write a poetical letter,” said Allen, beginning to extemporise in Hiawatha measure.

“O thou mighty man of money,
Barnes, of Belforest, Esquire,
Innocent is Alfred Richards;
Innocent his honest father;
Innocent as unborn baby
Of development of Midas,
Of the smearing of the Cupid,
Of the fracture of the goose-bill,
Of the writing of the mottoes. 
All the Brownlows of St. Kenelm’s,
From the Folly and from Kencroft. 
Robert, the aspiring soldier,
Robert, too, the sucking chemist,
John, the Skipjack full of mischief,
John, the great originator,
Allen, the-—”

“Allen the uncommon gaby,” broke in Bobus.  “Come, don’t waste time, something must be done.”

“Yes, a rational letter must be written and signed by you all,” said his mother.  “The question is whether it would be better to do it through your uncle or Mr. Ogilvie.”

“I don’t see why my father should hear of it, or Mr. Ogilvie either,” growled Rob.  “I didn’t do those donkeyfied ears.”

“You did the writing, which was five hundred times more donkeyfied,” said Jock.

“It is quite impossible to keep either of them in ignorance,” said Caroline.

“Yes,” repeated all her own three; Jock adding “Father would have known it as soon as you, and I don’t see that my uncle is much worse.”

“He ain’t so soft,” exclaimed Johnny, roused to loyal defence of his parent.

“Soft!” cried Jock, indignantly; “I can tell you father did pitch into me when I caught the old lady’s bonnet out at the window with a fishing-rod.”

“He never flogged you,” said Johnny contemptuously.

“He did!” cried Jock, triumphantly.  “At least he flogged Bobus, when—-”

“Shut up, you little ape,” thundered Bobus, not choosing to be offered up to the manes of his father’s discipline.