More William | Page 3

knows!"
William coughed, a cough meant to be a polite mixture of greeting and
deference. William's face was a study in holy innocence. His father
glanced at him suspiciously. There were certain expressions of
William's that he distrusted.
William entered the dining-room morosely. Jimmy's sister Barbara--a
small bundle of curls and white frills--was already beginning her
porridge.
"Goo' mornin'," she said, politely, "did you hear me cleanin' my teef?"
He crushed her with a glance.
He sat eating in silence till everyone had come down, and Aunts Jane,
Evangeline, and Lucy were consuming porridge with that mixture of
festivity and solemnity that they felt the occasion demanded.
Then Jimmy entered, radiant, with a tin in his hand.
"Got presents," he said, proudly. "Got presents, lots of presents."
He deposited on Barbara's plate a worm which Barbara promptly threw
at his face. Jimmy looked at her reproachfully and proceeded to Aunt
Evangeline. Aunt Evangeline's gift was a centipede--a live centipede
that ran gaily off the tablecloth on to Aunt Evangeline's lap before
anyone could stop it. With a yell that sent William's father to the library

with his hands to his ears, Aunt Evangeline leapt to her chair and stood
with her skirts held to her knees.
"Help! Help!" she cried. "The horrible boy! Catch it! Kill it!"
Jimmy gazed at her in amazement, and Barbara looked with interest at
Aunt Evangeline's long expanse of shin.
"My legs isn't like your legs," she said pleasantly and conversationally.
"My legs is knees."
It was some time before order was restored, the centipede killed, and
Jimmy's remaining gifts thrown out of the window. William looked
across the table at Jimmy with respect in his eye. Jimmy, in spite of his
youth, was an acquaintance worth cultivating. Jimmy was eating
porridge unconcernedly.
Aunt Evangeline had rushed from the room when the slaughter of the
centipede had left the coast clear, and refused to return. She carried on
a conversation from the top of the stairs.
"When that horrible child has gone, I'll come. He may have insects
concealed on his person. And someone's been dropping water all over
these stairs. They're damp!"
"Dear, dear!" murmured Aunt Jane, sadly.
Jimmy looked up from his porridge.
"How was I to know she didn't like insecks?" he said, aggrievedly. "I
like 'em."
William's mother's despair was only tempered by the fact that this time
William was not the culprit. To William also it was a novel sensation.
He realised the advantages of a fellow criminal.
After breakfast peace reigned. William's father went out for a walk with
Robert. The aunts sat round the drawing-room fire talking and doing
crochet-work. In this consists the whole art and duty of aunthood. All

aunts do crochet-work.
They had made careful inquiries about the time of the service.
"You needn't worry," had said William's mother. "It's at 10.30, and if
you go to get ready when the clock in the library strikes ten it will give
you heaps of time."
[Illustration: AROUND THEM LAY, MOST INDECENTLY
EXPOSED, THE INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE
LIBRARY CLOCK.]
Peace ... calm ... quiet. Mrs. Brown and Ethel in the kitchen supervising
the arrangements for the day. The aunts in the drawing-room discussing
over their crochet-work the terrible way in which their sisters had
brought up their children. That, also, is a necessary part of aunthood.
Time slipped by happily and peacefully. Then William's mother came
into the drawing-room.
"I thought you were going to church," she said.
"We are. The clock hasn't struck."
"But--it's eleven o'clock!"
There was a gasp of dismay.
"The clock never struck!"
Indignantly they set off to the library. Peace and quiet reigned also in
the library. On the floor sat William and Jimmy gazing with frowns of
concentration at an open page of "Things a Boy Can Do." Around them
lay most indecently exposed the internal arrangements of the library
clock.
"William! You wicked boy!"
William raised a frowning face.

"It's not put together right," he said, "it's not been put together right all
this time. We're makin' it right now. It must have wanted mendin' for
ever so long. I dunno how it's been goin' at all. It's lucky we found it
out. It's put together wrong. I guess it's made wrong. It's goin' to be a
lot of trouble to us to put it right, an' we can't do much when you're all
standin' in the light. We're very busy--workin' at tryin' to mend this ole
clock for you all."
"Clever," said Jimmy, admiringly. "Mendin' the clock. _Clever!_"
"William!" groaned his mother, "you've ruined the clock. What will
your father say?"
"Well, the cog-wheels was wrong," said William doggedly. "See? An'
this ratchet-wheel isn't on the pawl prop'ly--not like what this book says
it ought to be. Seems we've got to