“Or,” said Allen, “there’s the statue they say is himself, though that’s all nonsense. We could make a pair of donkey’s ears in Mother Carey’s clay, and clap them on him, and gild the thing in his hand.”
“What would be the good of that?” asked Robert.
However, the fun was irresistible, and the only wonder was that the secret was kept for the whole day, while Allen moulded in the studio two things that might pass for ass’s ears, and secreted cement enough to fasten them on. The performance elicited such a rapture of applause that the door had to be fast locked against the incursion of the little ones to learn the cause of the mirth. When Mother Carey asked at tea what they were having so much fun about they only blushed, sniggled, and wriggled in their chairs in a way that would have alarmed a more suspicious mother, but only made her conclude that some delightful surprise was preparing, for which she must keep her curiosity in abeyance.
“Nor was she dismayed by the creaking of boots on the attic stairs before dawn, and when the boys appeared at breakfast with hellebore, blue periwinkle, and daffodils, clear indications of where they had been, she only exclaimed—
“Forbidden sweets! O you naughty boys!” when ecstatic laughter alone replied.
She heard no more till the afternoon, when the return from school was notified by shouts from Allen, and the boys rushed up to the verandah where he was reading.
“I say! here’s a go. He thinks Richards has done it, and has written to Ogilvie to have him expelled.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me himself.”
“But Ogilvie has too much sense to expel him!”