A tiny pebble at the window. William leant out. Below were Ginger, Henry and Douglas with a small basket.
“Oh, crumbs!” said William joyfully.
He lowered a string and they tied the little basket on to it. William drew it up fairly successfully. It contained a half-eaten apple, a bar of toffee that had spent several days unwrapped in Henry’s pocket, which was covered with bits of fluff, a very stale bun purloined from Ginger’s mother’s larder, and a packet of monkey nuts bought with Ginger’s last twopence.
William’s eyes shone.
“Oh, I say,” he said gratefully, “thanks awfully. And, I say, you’d better go now ’case they see you, and I say, I’ll come huntin’ wild animals with you to-morrow night.”
“Right-o,” said the Outlaws creeping away through the bushes.
******
Downstairs William’s family circle consumed a meal consisting of sardines and stewed pears. They consumed it in gloomy silence, broken only by Mr. Brown’s dry, “I suppose there must be quite a heavy vein of insanity somewhere in the family for it to come out so strong in William.” And by Ethel’s indignant, “And epilepsy! Why on earth did he fix on epilepsy?” And by Robert’s gloomy, “Engaged to be married to her ... twenty-four ... chained to her for life.”
Upstairs the cause of all their troubles sat on the floor in the middle of his bedroom with his little pile of eatables before him.
“Come on, my gallant braves,” he said addressing an imaginary band of fellow captives. “Let us eat well and then devise some way of escape or ere dawn our bleached bones may dangle from yon gallows.”