The clumsiness of children is sometimes tragic.
Later, there was a trickling stream of fluffy bundles down the crooked stairs and through the parlour and so out into King Street. And Constance received many compliments and sundry appeals that darling Cyril should be forgiven.
“I thought you said that boy was in his bedroom,” said Samuel to Constance, coming into the parlour when the last guest had gone. Each avoided the other’s eyes.
“Yes, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“The little jockey!” (“Jockey,” an essay in the playful, towards making light of the jockey’s sin!) “I expect he’s been in search of Amy.”
She went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called out: “Amy, is Master Cyril down there?”
“Master Cyril? No, mum. But he was in the parlour a bit ago, after the first and second lot had gone. I told him to go upstairs and be a good boy.”
Not for a few moments did the suspicion enter the minds of Samuel and Constance that Cyril might be missing, that the house might not contain Cyril. But having once entered, the suspicion became a certainty. Amy, cross-examined, burst into sudden tears, admitting that the side-door might have been open when, having sped ‘the second lot,’ she criminally left Cyril alone in the parlour in order to descend for an instant to her kitchen. Dusk was gathering. Amy saw the defenceless innocent wandering about all night in the deserted streets of a great city. A similar vision with precise details of canals, tramcar-wheels, and cellar-flaps, disturbed Constance. Samuel said that anyhow he could not have got far, that some one was bound to remark and recognize him, and restore him. “Yes, of course,” thought sensible Constance. “But supposing—”
They all three searched the entire house again. Then, in the drawing-room (which was in a sad condition of anticlimax) Amy exclaimed: