"Boy scouts don't talk like that," he said gruffly.
"I beg your pardon. I was thinking that I was a Cavalier and you were a Roundhead. Now I perceive that you are just an ordinary fathead."
"Why," said Myra at the foot of the stairs, "what does this button mean? Have I found a clue?"
I examined it, and then I looked at my own coat.
"You have," I said. "Somebody has been down those stairs quite recently, for the button is still warm."
"Where is Scout Simpson?"
At that moment he appeared breathless with excitement.
"I have had an adventure," he said hurriedly, without saluting. "I was on the back stairs looking like a vacuum-cleaner when suddenly Archie and Miss Blair appeared. They looked right at me, but didn't seem to penetrate my disguise. Archie, in fact, leant against me, and said to Miss Blair: 'I will now tell you of my secret mission. I carry caviare—I mean despatches—to the general. Breathe but a word of this to the enemy, and I miss the half-holiday on Saturday. Come, let us be going, but first to burn the secret code.' And—and then he struck a match on me, and burned it."
Myra gurgled and hastily looked solemn again. "Proceed, Scout Simpson," she said, "for the night approaches apace."
"Well, then they started down the stairs, and I went after them on my—scouting, you know. I made rather a noise at one corner, and Archie looked round at me, and said to Miss Blair: 'The tadpoles are out full early. See yonder where one lies basking.' And he came back, and put his foot on me and said, 'Nay, 'tis but a shadow. Let us return right hastily. Yet tarry a moment, what time I lay a false trail.' So they tarried and he wrote a note and dropped it on me. And, afterwards, I got up and here it is."