My first intimation that something new was afoot came from an errand-boy on the edge of the crowd, who, addressing a lady or ladies unseen, suddenly expressed a desire to be chased.
All heads were now turned down the street, and there, approaching with rather faltering steps, carrying a red cotton bundle and a tea-can, I beheld—one of my sisters-in-law!
Postulating Dicky, I presumed it was Dilly, and I began to piece together in my mind the plot of this elaborate comedy. Evidently Dicky, Robin, and Gerald had decided—for a bet, or because they were dared, or possibly with a view to giving Champion's Bill a leg-up by a practical demonstration of the crying need for it—to dress themselves up as workmen and come and "do a turn," as they say in the music halls, to the discomfort of his Majesty's lieges and the congestion of traffic, upon some sufficiently busy thoroughfare for a stated period of time.
Certainly they were doing it rather well. They were admirably made up,—Dicky was a past-master at that sort of thing,—and their operations so far had been sufficiently like the genuine article to impose upon the public in general,—if we except Champion and Coaldust,—even to the point of securing the assistance of the traffic-directing policeman.
But alas! with that one step further, which is so often fatal to great enterprises, they had sought to add a finishing touch of realism to their impersonation by the inclusion of a little feminine interest; and to that end Dilly had been added to the cast—or more likely had added herself—in the rôle of a young person of humble station bringing her affianced his tea.
And, not for the first time in the history of man, it was the woman who opened the door to disaster.
Dilly wore a natty print dress—probably my housemaid's—with a tartan shawl over her head. She had on her thickest shoes, but they were woefully smart and thin for a girl of her class. Moreover, her hair was beautifully arranged under the shawl, and her hands—though she had had the sense to discard her ruby and sapphire engagement-ring—were too white and her face was too clean to lend conviction to her impersonation. In short, in her desire to present a pleasing tout ensemble—an object in which I must say she had succeeded to perfection—Dilly had utterly neglected detail and histrionic accuracy.
Evidently she was not expecting a gallery. Two highly-interested concentric circles—one of people and one of dogs—round her fiancé's encampment was rather more than she had bargained for. She had emerged quite suddenly from a side street (which I knew led to a shortcut from home) and now paused irresolutely a few yards away, crimson to the roots of her hair, what time the errand-boy, with looks of undisguised admiration, continued to reiterate his desire to be pursued.
The crowd all turned and stared at poor Dilly. Obviously they did not know what to make of her. Possibly she was some one from the chorus of a musical comedy going to be photographed, possibly she was merely "a bit balmy," or possibly she was an advertisement for something, and would begin to distribute hand-bills presently. So far, she merely looked as if she wanted to cry.
It was Robin who saw her first. He immediately stepped over his newly-completed touch-line, and taking the spotted bundle and the tea-can from her hands, conducted her ceremoniously within the magic circle, saying, in a voice much more like his own than before—