When he was outside the dining room, he realized that, poor as the breakfast might be, it would have been better than none, and began to wish he had said less, and eaten more.
After breakfast the hired girl began to wash the windows. Ned watched her standing on the stepladder, and thought what fine fun it would be to tip it over when she was on it, but concluded he wouldn't try it just then, as Bridget was apt to be cross as well as himself, and he remembered that some of the practical jokes he had played off on her had resulted in tingling ears, and having his ears boxed was about the worst kind of punishment for Ned. But as Bridget came out of the sitting room with the stepladder, which she was taking to the veranda, in order to wash the windows from the outside, she stumbled over him in the hall, and came so near falling that she had to let the ladder go and catch at the stair railing to save herself. And the ladder in its fall struck against a bracket on which a little vase stood, and away went both of them, and the vase was shivered into fragments.
"You good-for-nothin' spalpeen!" cried Bridget, giving him a slap across the ears; "you got forninst me on purpose, an' now see what you've done! That illigant mug all broke to pieces, jist on account of your bad ways. I've a good mind to tell the missus."
"You needn't 'a' stumbled over me," said Ned angrily. "If you'd look where you were going, you wouldn't go round smashing things up in this style. I'd turn you off if I was in father's place."
"Would you now?" demanded Bridget, her arms akimbo. "Indade I'd like to see ye doin' it. If you don't take yerself off, I'll box ye, mind that, now; an' I'll do it up in illigant style."
Ned concluded that discretion was the better part of valor at present, and repaired to the veranda.
Presently Bridget came out with the stepladder, which she adjusted before one of the windows, and then went in after water.
A bright idea struck Ned. Bridget had been saucy and impudent. He would be even with her. He'd learn her to slap his ears!
He pulled a long piece of stout cord out of his pocket and tied it to one leg of the stepladder, and then hid in the shrubbery.
Presently out came Bridget. She mounted the ladder, unconscious of any danger, and began washing the window vigorously.