“Oh, it’s one of them old, ancient tales,” said Mrs. Honeysett. “Old Beale could tell you, if any one could.”
“We’ll go down to old Beale’s,” said Edred decidedly, “as soon as we’ve developed our pictures of the castle—if there are any pictures,” he added.
“You never can tell with them photo-machines, can you?” said Mrs. Honeysett sympathetically. “My husband’s cousin’s wife was took, with all her family, by her own back door, and when they come to wash out the picture it turned out they’d took the next door people’s water-butt by mistake, owing to their billy-goat jogging the young man’s elbow that had got the camera. And it wasn’t a bit like any of them.”
CHAPTER XI
DEVELOPMENTS
“Come on,” said Edred, “you measure out the hypo and put the four pie-dishes ready. I’ll get the water.”
He got it, with Mrs. Honeysett’s help—two brimming pails full.
“You mustn’t come in for anything, will you, Mrs. Honeysett?” he earnestly urged. “You see, if the door’s open ever so little, all the photographs will be done for.”
“Law, love a duck!” said Mrs. Honeysett, holding her fat waist with her fat hands. “I shan’t come in; I ain’t got nothing to come in for.”
“We’ll bolt the door, all the same,” said Edred, when she was gone, “in case she was to think of something.”
He shot the great wooden bolt.