“It is done at last!” wailed Mrs. Billette. “This time they have kill themselves!”
CHAPTER IV
MORE PLANS
But it would take more than a mere matter of falling downstairs to put an end to the activities of Dodo and Paul. This they proved themselves, by coming up smiling and chuckling and very much alive at the foot of the stairs.
“Oh, you will be the death of me yet, you li’l rascals,” moaned Mrs. Billette, picking them up and feeling carefully over their small bodies to make sure that there were no bones broken. “I shall die of heart failure, if nothing else. Why will you not behave yourselves? Dodo, Paul, tell mother, are you hurt, darlings?”
Dodo and Paul regarded their mother and the girls in wide-eyed amazement at the fuss that was being made over them.
“Course, we’re not hurt,” said the little girl, rubbing a dimpled knee as though it had come in too hard contact with the edge of a stair. “Paul an’ me, we was runnin’ a race to see who could get downstairs first an’ Paul got in the way——”
“Den she pushed me,” said Paul, taking up the narrative in an injured tone. “I would have won de race only she pushed me. Wasn’t fair—”
“Was too,” interrupted Dodo, hotly. “You pushed me first, right up there at the head of the stairs an’ so I pushed you too.”
“Ooh,” said Paul, his eyes wide and injured. “Dodo Billette what a big story-teller——”