"Percy," said Van, "come out in the hall, will you?"
"What do you want?" asked Percy lazily.
"Oh! you come along," cried Van, laying hold of his jacket. "See here," dropping his voice cautiously, as he towed him successfully out, "let's give Joe a chance to see a burglar; he wants to so terribly."
"What do you mean?" asked Percy, with astonished eyes, his hands still in his pockets.
Van burst into a loud laugh, then stopped short. "It'll take two of us," he whispered.
"Oh, Van!" exclaimed Percy, and pulling his hands from their resting places, he clapped them smartly together.
"But we ought not, I really suppose," he said at last, letting them fall to his sides. "Mamma mightn't like it, you know."
"She wouldn't mind," said Van, yet he looked uneasy. "It would be a great comfort to every one, to take Joe down. He does yarn so."
"It's an old grudge with you," said Percy pleasantly. "You know he beat you when you were a little fellow, and he'd just come."
"As if I cared for that," cried Van in a dudgeon, "that was nothing. I didn't half try; and he went at me like a country sledge-hammer."