"Certainly, I'll try." Patricia was demureness itself. "If anything happens, it will be the 'divvle's' fault, so you mustn't hold me responsible."
"It's ye'er own divvle, ain't it?—ye can make it do what ye want."
"I don't know," protested Patricia. "I didn't even know I had a 'divvle.' It was you who discovered it; and people who discover things have to be responsible for them, don't they?"
Riley shook his head in desperation. His arguments were exhausted, and all that was left to him was retreat.
"I wuddent be that child's gov'ness f'r all th' money in th' world," he muttered, as he shuffled through the hall. "An' ter think they lift her home fr'm ch'ice. 'Twas th' lucky day f'r Miss Mary—but I wish her here."
Finding the coast clear, Patricia moved the scene of her activity to the reception-room. Here she undertook to put into execution the latest idea which had struck her fancy, which was nothing less than a medieval tournament on as elaborate a scale as the properties at hand would permit. The hotel had not been furnished with an eye to contests of chivalry, but chairs, turned wrong-side up and covered with table-cloths, made richly caparisoned steeds; and Patricia's imagination easily supplied the riders.
At first the Knights and their horses were ranged together at one end of the room.
"You are Front-de-B[oe]uf," the child announced, laying her hand upon the first overturned chair; "and you are Bois-Guilbert, and you Malvoisin. We ought to have some others, but there aren't any more table-covers."
Then she moved Front-de-B[oe]uf into the centre of the arena.
"You stay there 'til I get my shield and lance," she said, and the war-like Knight made no protest.