"I tell thee 'twas nought but a stone, Pen," he was saying, "I say, an ordinary, loose cobble-stone! Good Gad, madam, and why shouldn't it be a cobble-stone? Gentlemen are forever twisting their ankles on cobble-stones! I tell you—" Hereupon Bentley threw open the door, but I entered first.
"No, no, Jack!" I cried, "'twas down the steps—you tripped down the steps at 'The Chequers,' you know you did!"
"Nay, 'twas Saladin jibbed,—don't you remember?" says Bentley.
"Why, Dick and Bentley!" cries Jack, staring from one to the other of us, "what a plague's all this? Don't I know how I hurt my own foot? I say 'twas a cobble-stone, and a cobble-stone it shall be. Lord! how could ye try to fill our maid's pretty head with such folly? Shame on ye both! Why not stick to the truth—and my cobble-stone?"
"And now, dear Sir John," says Pen, very soft and demure, "pray tell me—how did you hurt your foot?"
"Hey—what?" spluttered Jack, "don't I tell you—"
"A flight of steps, a stirrup, and a stone!" sighed Pen, shaking her head at us each in turn.
"Now look'ee, Pen," says Jack, trying to bluster, "I say I'm not to be badgered and brow-beaten by a slip of a girl—I say I'm not, by heaven!"
"Oh, my dears, my dears!" sighed Pen, reprovingly, "Isn't it time you learned that you can keep few—very few secrets from me, who understand you all so well because I love you all so well? I have been your playfellow and companion so long that, methinks, I know you much better than you know yourselves; I, who have had my word in all your councils? How foolish then to think to put me off with such flimsy stories. Of course I shall find out all about it, sooner or later, I always do. Yes, I shall, even if I must needs hide in corners sirs, and hearken at keyholes, and peep and pry—so I warn you." And with this, she nodded and turned and left us to stare blankly at one another.
"That settles it!" said Bentley, gloomily, "she'll no more swallow thy cobble-stone than Dick's flight of steps, Jack. She'll know the truth before the week is out!"