“Why did you tell me Jones’s name was Dumpkins, you, Peter?” the master indignantly demanded of Tod some minutes later.
“I couldn’t have done that, sir,” said Tod, gravely, “for there’s nobody called Dumpkins in the school.”
It was this young master who rechristened the twins when Peter next day insisted that “a point has position but no gratitude.”
Strangely enough “The Merry Men” finds even greater favor with them than “Treasure Island,” and with the enigmatical decision of childhood their favorite of all the stories is “Markheim,” not “Will o’ the Mill,” beloved of critics. It is doubtful if they understand much of it, but nevertheless they read it over and over again to each other aloud, or silently with their curly heads pressed together, till they knew it by heart. To be sure, “Thrawn Janet” has a dreadful fascination for them, and they acted one of the principal scenes with somewhat direful results.
Peter made Tod “tie him by the neck” to the bed with red worsted, while Tod, in his character of the minister, had to creep in, candle in hand, to discover the dread spectacle; and Peter’s representation of the fearsome Janet was so truthful and blood-curdling that Tod dropped the candle and fled downstairs howling at the top of his voice, and such was his haste that he fell and sprained his wrist. Meanwhile, the candle had set fire to the valance of the bed, and altogether there was a fine hullabaloo; there was also an end put to their dramatic efforts for a week or two.
Nothing daunted, however, about a month later, on a Sunday evening when the servants were all at church, and their mother writing for dear life the long weekly letters that have to be written when a woman has husband and four sons scattered about the globe, Tod and Peter sought the seclusion of the kitchen and determined to “act” “Markheim.”
All went well and quietly for a long time; the firelit kitchen with loud ticking clock answered admirably as the scene of the murder, the dialogue between Markheim and the mysterious stranger went without a hitch, and Tod sallied forth into a “wonderful clear night of stars,” while Peter shut the back door softly after him. Peter, in his character of Markheim, was bent upon making the speech with which the story concludes, where the maidservant rings the door-bell and Markheim opens to her with the words: “You had better go for the police; I have killed your master!”
Poor Tod had to be the maidservant—he always had to follow where Peter led. He shivered as he ran up the area steps; it was a cold night, he had not troubled to provide himself with a coat, and his heart was heavy, for, to tell the truth, he has far more imagination than Peter, and sometimes their plays are to him one long agony of apprehension.
He positively dreaded ringing that area bell, and the sinister announcement that would follow on the act. No longer was he Tod, but a trembling servant lass who was forced by fate to ring a bell which sounded a tocsin of dreadful import.