A bell jangled overhead.
"Captain Hocken's bell!—and the child's face all blubbered, which he hates to see, while as for Captain Hunken—there! it that isn't his bell going too in the adjoining! Palmerston, pull yourself together and be a man."
"I c-can't, missus," sobbed Palmerston. "He—he said yesterday as he'd g-give me the sack the next time he saw my eyes red."
"Well, I must take 'em their tea myself, I suppose," said Mrs Bowldler, who had a kind heart. "No, Palmerston, your eyes are not fit. But you see how I'm situated?" she appealed to Fancy.
"Do you usually let them ring for tea?" Fancy asked.
"No, child. There must be something wrong with them both, or else with my clock," answered Mrs Bowldler with a glance up at the timepiece. "But twenty-five past four, I take you to witness! and I keep it five minutes fast on principle."
"There is something wrong," Fancy assured her. "If you'll take my advice, you'll go in and look injured."
"I couldn't keep 'em waiting, though injured I will look," promised Mrs Bowldler, catching up one of the two tea-trays. "Palmerston had better withdraw into the grounds and control himself. I will igsplain that I have sent him on an errand connected with the establishment."
She bustled forth. Fancy closed the door after her; then turned and addressed Palmerston.
"Dry your eyes, you silly boy," she commanded. Palmerston obeyed and stood blinking at her—alternately at her and at his handkerchief which he held tightly crumpled into a pad; whereupon she demanded, somewhat cruelly: