“Is it anybody’s birthday?” asked Cissy.
“I daresay,” said Pickering. “Sure to be.”
“But you don’t know that it’s anybody’s birthday for a fact, do you?”
“Yes, I do. It’s a dead cert that it’s somebody’s. Somebody’s born every day. It’s probably several people’s birthday.”
“But you don’t know whose?”
“No. I don’t know whose and I don’t want to; what does it matter? Who cares?”
They both laughed heartily. It was so like Pickering! That was Pickering all over to give an exhibition of fireworks in honour of the birthday of somebody he didn’t know anything about, or in honour of its not being the fifth November.
“But will mummy mind? Won’t she be afraid?”
“She won’t mind, because she won’t know. And she won’t be afraid because she and father are going out to dinner and they won’t hear anything about it until all the danger’s over. I’ve got rockets and Bengal lights and all sorts of things here.”
“But suppose they catch fire to the curtains on the balcony and we have a fire-escape here,” suggested Cissy.