"Oh, nothing pertickler," said Eliza.
"Then it was all a dream, she said, when he was gone; "but it'll be a lesson to me not to meddle with anybody's old ring again in a hurry."
"So they didn't tell 'er about me behaving like I did," said he as he went "sun, I suppose like our Army in India. I hope I ain't going to be liable to it, that's all!"
Johnson was the hero of the hour. It was he who had tracked the burglars, laid his plans, and recovered the lost silver. He had not thrown the stone public opinion decided that Mabel and her aunt must have been mistaken in supposing that there was a stone at all. But he did not deny the warning letter. It was Gerald who went out after breakfast to buy the newspaper, and who read aloud to the others the two columns of fiction which were the Liddlesby Observer's report of the facts. As he read every mouth opened wider and wider, and when he ceased with "this gifted fellow-townsman with detective instincts which out-rival those of Messrs. Lecoq and Holmes, and whose promotion is now assured," there was quite a blank silence.
"Well," said Jimmy, breaking it, "he doesn't stick it on neither, does he?"
"I feel," said Kathleen, "as if it was our fault as if it was us had told all these whoppers; because if it hadn't been for you they couldn't have, Jerry. How could he say all that?"
"Well," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "you know, after all, the chap had to say something. I'm glad I " He stopped abruptly.
"You're glad you what?"
"No matter," said he, with an air of putting away affairs of state. "Now, what are we going to do today? The faithful Mabel approaches; she will want her ring. And you and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. Mademoiselle hasn't had any attention paid to her for more days than our hero likes to confess."
"I wish you wouldn't always call yourself 'our hero', said Jimmy; "you aren't mine, anyhow."