"It's ever so long after your bed-time, William," said Mrs. Brown with a sigh. "He's simply trodden the stuff in besides putting it there."
"I advise you to go to bed before father comes back," said Robert with a superior elder-brother air.
William inwardly agreed. There was something to be said for being in bed and asleep when his father came home. Explanations, put off to the following day, are apt to lose the keenness of their edge. He turned to the door.
"Nothing I do ever seems to come out right," he said gloomily. "How was I to know—diggin' away like that!"
"I daresay you didn't mean anything, dear," said Mrs. Brown, "but it was only new last January."
William reached the bottom of the staircase, then had a sudden thought and returned.
"Anyway," he said, putting his head round the drawing-room door, "if you hadn't made me go to church when I was feelin' so ill, I wun't have known anything about reforming folks."
"William," said Mrs. Brown wearily, "do go to bed."
William complied, but again only reached the foot of the staircase. Here another thought struck him, and he returned.
"Anyway," he said, putting his head round the door again, "I bet you wun't have gone right up to a murderer, diggin' a grave for the folks he'd murdered, an' I bet if he had been a real murderer an' I'd been dead an' buried by now, you'd be feelin' a bit——"