“Send for the poulterer.”
This was done. Only one pair of white rabbits remained the property of Edwin, but these, by the power of the Arithmetic Fairy, became ten by Christmas.
The rabbits disposed of, peace spread a longing wing over the villa, but was not allowed to settle.
“Oh, please ’m,” the startled cook, cap all crooked, exclaimed in the hall, “the cellar is choke-full of apples—most of ’em bad ’m—I never see no one deliver them, nor yet give no receipt.”
The cook, for once in a lurid career, spoke truth. The cellar was full of apples. Nineteen pounds nineteen and twopence and one-third of a pennyworth—to be accurate.
Edwin went to bed, feeling now quite sure that he had not dreamed the Arithmetic Fairy, and anxiously wondering what to-morrow’s sums would be about. Not, he trusted, about snakes, or Sunday School teachers.
The next day’s sum was about oranges. Edwin did it correctly, and went home a prey to the most golden apprehensions. Nor were these unfounded. The whole of the dining-room and most of the hall—up to the seventh step of the neatly carpeted stairs, was golden with oranges. Edwin’s father said some severe things about practical jokers, and sent for the greengrocer. Edwin ate nine 3/7th oranges, and went to bed yellow, but not absolutely unhappy.
But now he was quite sure.
On the following day his sum dealt with elephants, and in such numbers that his father, on returning from business, yielded to a very natural annoyance, and gave notice to his landlord that he should, at Lady Day, leave a villa where elephants and oranges occurred to such an extent.
No one suspected Edwin of having anything to do with these happenings. And indeed, it was not his fault, so how and why could or should he have owned up to it?