“Of course, but there’s worse, for old Barnes means to turn off his father. Nothing will persuade the old fellow that it wasn’t his work, for he says that it must be a grammar-school boy.”
“Does Dicky Bird guess?”
“Yes, but he’s all right, as close as wax. He says he was sure no one but ourselves could have done it, for nobody else could have thought of such things or made them either.”
“Then he has seen it?”
“Yes, and he was fit to kill himself with laughing, though his father and old Barnes were mad with rage and fury. His father believes him, but old Barnes believes neither of them, and swears his father shall go.”
“We shall have to split on ourselves,” elegantly observed Johnny.
“We had better tell Mother Carey. Hullo! here she is, inside the window.”
“Didn’t you know that,” said Allen.
Therefore the boys, leaning and sprawling round her, half in and half out of the window, told the story, the triumph overcoming all compunction, as they described the morning raid, the successful scaling of the park-wall, the rush across the sward, the silence of the garden, the hoisting up of Allen to fasten on the ears, and the wonderful charms of the figure when it wore them and held a golden apple in its hand. “Right of Way,” and “Let us in,” had been written in black on all the pedestals.
“It is a peculiar way of recommending your admission,” said Caroline.