“Let’s go and warn the school, or it’ll get the kids——”
On reaching their homes most of them found their wives in hysterics on the kitchen floor after a hasty return from the mothers’ meeting.
Meanwhile William sat beneath a tree in the wood in an attitude of utter despondency, his head on his paws.
“Why didn’t you tell them,” said Goldilocks impatiently.
“I tell everyone,” said William. “Nobody’ll listen to me. They make a noise and throw things. I’m go’n’ home.”
He rose and held out a paw. He felt utterly and miserably cut off from his fellow-men. He clung pathetically to Goldilock’s presence.
“Come with me,” he said.
Hand in hand, a curious couple, they went through the woods to the back of William’s house. “If I die,” he said at once, “afore we get home, you’d better bury me. There’s a spade in the back garden.”
He took her round to the shed in his back garden.
“You stay here,” he whispered. “An’ I’ll try and get my head took off an’ then get us somethin’ to eat.”