Then I would walk up to it, and with my forefinger raised chidingly—
“You are a naughty old chair,” I would say; “you cannot be at rest five minutes at a time, and I am afraid you are showing your brother a bad example. Go into the corner, sir, until I tell you to come out.”
“Now then,” I would continue, mimicking the fishermen we listened to hoisting their yawls from the beach and surf. “Now then, Jill, lend a hand here, and look lively, lad. Tackle on to her. Merrily matches it. Together. Heave with a will. Up with her. Round she goes, and up she is, and we go rolling home. Hurrah!”
When we got the chair fairly round with its back to us we felt at peace to do as we liked. We could stand on our heads till our faces got blue and our eyes felt ready to burst; I could make a go-cart of Jill, and haul him all round the room with the skipping-rope; he could make a ship’s mast of me, and squirm up and stand on my shoulders to give three cheers for the Queen and the Royal Navy; we could build a tower with the chairs, and in fact do anything or everything except spill the ink. When we did that it cast a damp gloom over our spirits just as it spread an inky pall over a portion of the table-cloth.
My father was our friend and playmate whenever he came home. This was not oftener than twice or thrice a week, for he was doing duty with his regiment at the somewhat distant naval and military port of P—. He would fain have come oftener, but dared not offend so kindly a superior officer as Colonel McReady.
Now auntie did not actually complain to father, but she used to mention some of the maddest of our escapades, and with Jill climbing over the back of his chair, and I, perhaps, standing bolt upright on his knees, balanced by his hands, father would say—
“You young rascals, what did you do it for? Eh?”
And this made us laugh like mad things, for we knew father was not angry.
“Ah, well, auntie dear,” he would say, “boys will be boys.”
“True,” she would reply; “but boys needn’t be monkeys, need they, Harold?”