“D’you mean,” he said at last, “that it’s an extra day that doesn’t count in the ornery year?”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Mrs. Brown vaguely. “William dear, I wish you wouldn’t always stand just in my light.”
*****
It was February 29th. William was unusually silent during breakfast. In the relief caused by his silence his air of excitement was unnoticed.
After breakfast, William went upstairs. He took two small paper parcels from a drawer and put them into his overcoat pocket. One contained several small cakes surreptitiously abstracted from the larder, the other contained William’s “disguise.” William’s “disguise” was a false beard which had formed part of Robert’s hired costume for the Christmas theatricals. Robert never knew what had happened to the beard. He had been charged for it as “missing” by the theatrical costumier.
William had felt that a “disguise” was a necessity to him. All the heroes of the romances he read found it necessary in the crises of their adventurous lives to assume disguises. William felt that you never knew when a crisis was coming, and that any potential hero of adventure—such as he knew himself to be—should never allow himself to be without a “disguise.” So far he had not had need to assume it. But he had hopes for to-day. It was an extra day. Surely you could do just what you liked on an extra day. To-day was to be a day of adventure.
He went downstairs and put on his cap in the hall.
“You’ll be rather early for school,” said Mrs. Brown.
William’s unsmiling countenance assumed a look of virtue.
