Edward on reflection negatived the idea. ‘It would make too much noise,’ he pointed out. ‘There’s no fun playing at ships, unless you can make a jolly good row.’
The door creaked, and a small figure in white slipped cautiously in. ‘Thought I heard you talking,’ said Charlotte. ‘We don’t like it; we’re afraid—Selina too! She’ll be here in a minute. She’s putting on her new dressing-gown she’s so proud of.’
His arms round his knees, Edward cogitated deeply until Selina appeared, barefooted, and looking slim and tall in the new dressing-gown. Then, ‘Look here,’ he exclaimed; ‘now we’re all together, I vote we go and explore!’
‘You’re always wanting to explore,’ I said. ‘What on earth is there to explore for in this house?’
‘Biscuits!’ said the inspired Edward.
‘Hooray! Come on!’ chimed in Harold, sitting up suddenly. He had been awake all the time, but had been shamming asleep, lest he should be fagged to do anything.
It was indeed a fact, as Edward had remembered, that our thoughtless elders occasionally left the biscuits out, a prize for the night-walking adventurer with nerves of steel.
Edward tumbled out of bed, and pulled a baggy old pair of knickerbockers over his bare shanks. Then he girt himself with a belt, into which he thrust, on the one side a large wooden pistol, on the other an old single-stick; and finally he donned a big slouch-hat—once an uncle’s—that we used for playing Guy Fawkes and Charles-the-Second-up-a-tree in. Whatever the audience, Edward, if possible, always dressed for his parts with care and conscientiousness; while Harold and I, true Elizabethans, cared little about the mounting of the piece, so long as the real dramatic heart of it beat sound.
Our commander now enjoined on us a silence deep as the grave, reminding us that Aunt Eliza usually slept with an open door, past which we had to file.
‘But we’ll take the short cut through the Blue Room,’ said the wary Selina.