He went away again almost directly afterwards, and there followed a time of general bustle and confusion. ‘It’s a pity we can’t take Diamond Jubilee his breakfast now,’ remarked Emmeline, chancing to find herself alone with the twins. ‘It would be quite easy to get it out of the house without anyone noticing while they’re all so busy; but it’s such a long way to the Feudal Castle that I’m afraid it would be lesson-time before we could get back.’
‘Oh, but he isn’t at the Feudal Castle,’ said Micky calmly. ‘I believe he’d be in the summer-house still if I hadn’t told him he must jolly well get out if he didn’t want me to lick him. I expect he’s hanging about somewhere near the garden.’
‘Micky, you surely didn’t sleep in the summer-house?’ asked Emmeline, in a frightened voice.
Micky nodded.
‘You couldn’t expect us to lug those beastly blankets all the way to the Feudal Castle,’ he said.
‘But, Micky, it was really risky,’ said Emmeline. ‘Just supposing Mr. Brown had found you!’
‘Well, he didn’t, anyhow,’ said Micky, ‘and it wasn’t likely he would; nobody hardly ever goes there except us. It was really much safer than if we had gone to the Feudal Castle. How would I ever have known when it was time to come back, in the middle of the wood?’
There was something in this, but still Emmeline could not help feeling that it had been a risk, and a risk that Diamond Jubilee must not again be allowed to run. Then, as a fresh idea suddenly struck her, ‘What about the blankets?’ she gasped—‘you haven’t surely left them——’
‘Oh, they’re as safe as safe,’ Micky reassured her. ‘I thought of a simply lovely place to keep them—Punch’s kennel!’
‘But they’ll be seen as soon as ever Punch is unchained!’ said Emmeline, in a panic. ‘Oh, how could you be so silly?’