*****
William’s Collection of Insects was ready for the afternoon’s show. The exhibits were arranged in small cardboard boxes, covered mostly with paper, and these were all packed into a large cardboard box.
The only difficulty was that he could not think where to conceal it from curious or disapproving eyes till after lunch. The garden, he felt, was not safe—cats might upset it, and once upset in the garden the insects would be able to return to their native haunts too quickly. His mother would not allow him to keep them indoors. She would find them and expel them wherever he put them.
Unless—William had a brilliant idea—he hid them under the drawing-room sofa. The drawing-room sofa had a cretonne cover with a frill that reached to the floor, and he had used this place before as a temporary receptacle for secret treasures. No one would look under it, or think of his putting anything there. He put the tortoise into a box with a lid, and tied Omshafu up firmly with string in his box, and put them in the large cardboard box with the insects. Then he put the large cardboard box under the sofa and went into lunch with a mind freed from anxiety.
The exhibition was not to begin till three, so William wandered out to find Jumble. He found him in the ditch, threw sticks for him, brushed him severely with an old boot brush that he kept in the outhouse for the rare occasions of Jumble’s toilet, and finally tied round his neck the old, raggy and almost colourless pink ribbon that was his gala attire. Then he came to the drawing-room for the exhibits. There he received his first shock.
On the drawing-room sofa sat Miss Euphemia Barney, wearing her very highest thought expression. She surveyed William from head to foot silently with a look of slight disgust, then turned away her head with a shudder. William sought his mother.
“Wot’s she doin’ in our house?” he demanded sternly.
“I’ve lent the drawing-room for a meeting of the Higher Thought, darling,” said Mrs. Brown reverently, “because she has the painters in her own drawing-room. You mustn’t interrupt.”
Mrs. Brown was not a Higher Thinker, but she cherished a deep respect for them.
“But——” began William indignantly, then stopped. He thought, upon deliberation, that it was better not to betray his hiding-place.