"I declare, you bad boy, you have undone nearly an afternoon's work, and done many a pennyworth of damage. I'll bring an action against you, Jack, and mamma shall be judge. And here's the porcelain doll that I called after you, and you were pretending to wash, left at the bottom of the bath. Of course it's drowned, for no person could be ten minutes face downwards and under water without being finished off. However, the little ones can play at burying him to-morrow—that's something."
This was too much even for Flossie's gravity. She and Jack burst into a fit of laughing at the idea of the drowned doll and funeral in prospective, in which Madge joined a moment after, despite her endeavours to look aggrieved at the sad consequences of Jack's negligence.
In removing the tin bath Madge discovered the new penny underneath it, and then Jack remembered that he had put it there himself for safety, because both his pockets were in an unsafe condition.
"And no wonder, Jack, considering the loads and loads of rubbish you put in. One of your jackets came from the cleaner's only yesterday, and mamma says it smells oily yet, and all through your carrying lumps of putty in it for weeks together."
Jack pulled a long face, and held out his hand for the recovered coin, which Madge at first refused to deliver up.
"Give me a kiss for it, and say you're sorry for all the fuss and the mischief you have caused," said she.
Madge held out her rosy lip; Jack drew back, shrugged his shoulders, and looked as if he were going to perform an act of penance. He gave the pretty lips a very rapid salute, snatched the coin from Madge, then pulled a wry face and polished his own mouth on the cuff of his coat.
"Is it such a terrible dose, Jack?" asked Madge, with just a suspicion of moisture in the corner of her eye, for she could not bear the young rebel even to pretend anything unloving towards her.
For answer she received a hug that would have been a credit to a Greenland bear, and quite a little shower of kisses from the boy, who added, "You knew it was only for fun, Madge. I would not vex you, dear." And she did, know it.
At this moment mamma came in.