[146]
]CHAPTER X.
THE ILLUMINATION.

A neighbour’s house he’d slyly pass,

And throw a stone to break the glass.

One fine morning in Charlotte Square, Peter Grey persuaded a party of his companions to spend all the money they had on cakes and sugar-plums, to make a splendid entertainment under the trees, where they were to sit like a horde of gypsies, and amuse themselves with telling fortunes to each other. Harry and Laura had no one with them but Betty, who gladly joined a group of nursery-maids at a distance, leaving them to their own devices; upon which they rushed up to Peter and offered their assistance, subscribing all their pocket-money, and begging him to set forth and obtain provisions for them as well as for himself. Neither Harry nor Laura cared for eating the trash that was collected on this occasion, and would have been quite as well pleased to distribute it among their companions; but they both enjoyed extremely the bustle of arranging this elegant déjeuné

or “disjune,” as Peter called it. Harry gathered leaves off the trees to represent plates, on each of which Peter arranged some of the fruit or sweetmeats he had purchased, while they placed benches together as a table, and borrowed Laura’s white India shawl for a table-cloth.

“It looks like that grand public dinner we saw at the [147] ]Assembly Rooms one day!” exclaimed Harry, in an ecstacy of admiration. “We must have speeches and toasts like real gentlemen and officers. Peter! if you will make a fine oration, full of compliments to me, I shall say something wonderful about you, and then Laura must beat upon the table with a stick, to show that she agrees to all that we observe in praise of each other.”

“Or suppose we all take the names of some great personages,” added Peter, “I shall be the Duke of Wellington, and Laura, you must be Joseph Hume, and Harry, you are Sir Francis Burdett, that we may seem as different as possible; but here comes the usher of the black rod to disperse us all! Mrs. Crabtree hurrying into the square, her very gown flaming with rage! what can be the matter! she must have smelled the sugar-plums a mile off! one comfort is, if Harry and Laura are taken away, we shall have the fewer people to divide these cakes among, and I could devour every one of them, for my own share.”

Before Peter finished speaking, Mrs. Crabtree had come close up to the table, and without waiting to utter a word, or even to scold, she twitched up Laura’s shawl in her hand, and thus scattered the whole feast in every direction on the ground, after which she trampled the sugar-plums and cakes into the earth, saying,

“I knew how it would be, as soon as I saw whose company you were in, Master Harry! Peter Grey is the father of mischief! he ought to be put into the monkey’s cage at the Geological gardens! I would not be your maid, Master Grey, for a hundred a-year.”

“You would need to buy a thrashing machine immediately,” said Peter, laughing; “what a fine time I should have of it! you would scarcely allow me, I suppose, to blow my porridge! how long would it take you, Mrs. Crabtree, to make quite a perfectly good boy of me? Perhaps a month, do [148] ]you think? or to make me as good as Frank, it might possibly require six weeks.”