Hardly had the usher departed than Frank Digby popped his head out of bed:
“I don't know,” said he, “whether any one expects a feast to-night, from a few unlucky remarks which fell from me this morning; if so, gentlemen, I wish immediately to dispel the pleasing delusion, assuring you of the melancholy fact, that my golden pippins have fallen victims to Gruffy's rapacity.”
“Oh, what a shame!” exclaimed one.
“What's that, Frank?” said Reginald.
“How did Gruffy get hold of them?” asked Meredith: “I thought you were more than her match.”
“Why, the fact is, her olfactory nerves becoming strongly excited, she insisted upon having a search, and after snuffing about, she came near my hiding-place, and found the little black portmanteau:
“ ‘Upon my word, Mr. Digby,’ said she, ‘I am surprised at your dirtiness—putting apples under your pillow!’ and insisted on having the key or the apples. I disclaimed all ideas of apples, but quite failed in persuading her that I had Russian leather-covered books inside, that were placed there to enable me to pursue my studies at the first dawn of day. You should have heard her: ‘Did I suppose she was an idiot, and couldn't smell apples!’ and oh—nobody knows how much more. But I should have carried my point if ill-luck hadn't brought Fudge in the way, and the harpy carried off my treasures.”
Frank paused, and then added, in a tone that set every one laughing, “It's a pity she can't be transported into heathen mythology; she'd have made an excellent dragon. Hercules would never have been so successful if she'd been that of Hesperia. I'll be even with her yet; but there's something very forlorn in one's troubles beginning directly.”
The next morning brought with it the stern reality of school. Louis was dreaming that he was in Dashwood with Charles Clifton, when the bell-man came into the breakfast-room, crying out that the golden pippins belonging to his attached school-fellow, Frank Digby, were lost, stolen, or strayed; and that he would be even with any who should find them, and bring them to the Hesperides; and he was in the act of proving, more to his own satisfaction than to that of the bell-man, that the books in the library were what he wanted, when Reginald discovered them,—i.e., the golden apples,—peeping from under his pillow, and shook him violently for his deceit.
“Louis, Louis!—the bell, the bell.”