Out came Mrs Inglis, and out came the Squire, and out ran the cook from the kitchen; and then everybody began to talk at once, so that the confusion grew worse than ever.
Master Harry was the first to get up, and, instead of trying to assist his companions in misfortune, or to rub the dust off his clothes, he began to collect the cake together; and, as the plate was broken, he very carefully arranged the three-cornered wedges on the top of his straw hat, as though the cake had been a puzzle.
As for Fred, he had quite a job to disentangle himself from Mary; for, when she was going down, she loosed her hold of the little tray she was carrying, and caught hold of Fred, and, of course, they went down together. But when Fred got up, he stood shaking his ear, and trying to get rid of the buzzing sound produced by Mary’s piercing scream.
Philip was in the worst plight, for he went head first amongst the eggs, and was in consequence rather eggy. He was quite aware of his misfortune, and had been wiping the rich yolk off his face; but, not having a glass before him, he had made it rather smeary, and also left a goodly portion in the roots of his hair.
Poor Mary gathered herself up, sobbing half hysterically that it wasn’t her fault. “No,” said Harry, stoutly. “It wasn’t Mary’s fault. We all had a share in it.”
As for Mr and Mrs Inglis, they took the sensible view of the case, that it was an accident, which only resulted in the breakage of a plate, and the loss of two or three eggs; for Harry declared that the cake was “All right,” and they would eat it; go they returned to the breakfast-parlour, mutually glad that Mary was not bringing in the tea-urn, when the accident might have been of a very serious nature. But when the boys had made themselves respectable, and descended again to breakfast, all this involved some rather serious talk upon the part of Mr and Mrs Inglis, but did not seem to spoil the boys’ breakfast the least bit in the world; while as to the cake, they said it wasn’t a bit the worse, only rather gritty with a few little bits of china that had been left in from the broken plate.
“Well, boys,” said Mr Inglis at last, “what have you been doing this morning?”
“Riding, Papa, in the field, and Fred, too. We had such capital fun, and old Dumpling seems to like it as well as any of us.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said the Squire; “but I should think he liked it best when you left him in peace, and he had got rid of such a pack of wild young dogs, baiting and bothering him. Now,” he continued, “what are we going to do to-day?”
“Let’s go and catch another great pike,” said Fred.