PRINCE JOHN’S STRANGE ALLY

Told by Dandy, the Terrier

I MADE a mistake once, and nipped a tramp’s wooden leg. Since then, I look before I take hold. But even a poodle could see that this thing was old bone, though its eyes glinted like Tibbie’s in the dark, and there was a smell of grease about its beaded kilt. And, talking of kilts, there’s a bare-legged fellow who comes here every summer and struts up and down the road, making the beastliest row with some sort of instrument all pipes and ribbons. Wow! don’t I change his tune if I get out before anybody can catch me!

“Why, it’s a baby’s toy,” said I, seeing that Minkie was rather taken with it.

“Let’s have a look,” said a voice I hated, and Tibbie walked up Bobby’s neck, and perched between his ears.

“Hello!” cried I, in my most sarcastic snarl, “are you there? And what is this acrobatic business? Is it a circus, or what?”

“Speak when you’re spoken to,” spat Tibbie. “And let me give you fair warning that the next time you sneak any meat off my skewer I’ll—”

“Oh, shut up, both of you,” commanded Minkie; so I just pretended to lick my lips, though I really care very little for the rather high stuff that cats make such a song about. I like mine underdone.

“Have you ever before heard of a ju-ju, Bob?” went on Minkie.

“No,” said Bob. He didn’t shake his head, because Tibbie was there, and she has a nasty habit of hanging on with her claws before you can say “Rats!” Why do cats have such sharp nails, anyhow? They used to scar my muzzle something awful before I learnt to jump on them feet first. But they can’t bite for nuts. If they could, I must admit—

“I think I might tell you something about it,” broke in Tibbie, backing down Bob’s mane and settling on his withers again.

“Well, go on,” said Minkie, bending a bit, so as to watch Tibbie’s green eyes.

“It’s a long time ago since I had the story from a blue Persian.”

“Cookie has some liver in the larder.” You see, Minkie knew her cat.

“Has she? I was out when the butcher came.”

“Yes. It’s liver and bacon for breakfast in the morning. And SOLES!”

P-r-r-r, you could feel Tibbie’s fur rising.

“I’ll try to remember,” she said in a rather thick voice. “It seems that we cats used to be worshipped by the ancient Egyptians. The cat deity was named Elurus, and we were also venerated as a symbol of the moon—”

I couldn’t help it. Even Bob coughed, and then pretended to be chewing hay. But, because I laughed, Minkie clouted my ear.

“The Romans always placed a cat at the feet of the Goddess of Liberty; they realized that no animal resists the loss of its freedom so furiously as a cat,” continued Tibbie in her best purr. “That is why you never see a cat wearing a collar, the badge of servitude, like a dog.”

Wow! I’ll give her “servitude” next time I have a chance. “Like a dog!” indeed.

“What has all this got to do with a ju-ju?” asked Minkie.

“I am coming to that. The Egyptians were a very wise people, obviously, and their ways were sure to be copied by the black men who lived near them. They thought so much of cats that whoever killed one, even accidentally, was punished by death. This cat-headed god, Elurus, had a human body, and his image brought luck and good fortune to those who carried it about with them. Now, there are no cats where the black men live, but there are plenty of monkeys, so I am just guessing.”

“I see,” said Minkie, quite seriously.

“Regarding that fish and liver?” cried Tibbie, trying to talk in an off-hand way.

“I am going to interview Cookie now,” was the reply.

“Hold on! Where do I come in?” I simply had to interfere. The thing was an outrage. Fancy getting fish and liver for a blue-mouldy yarn like that.

“And me?” snorted Bob.

“You’re both too fat already,” said Minkie calmly, but she kicked down another lot of hay before she blew the lantern out, and I got a snack of steak while Tibbie was filling up on fish heads and foie de veau. I lapped the best part of her milk, too, when she wasn’t looking.

There was a keen frost that night, and the scent of the nigger, not to mention some beery singers who call themselves “the waits,” kept me awake for hours. Every man has a different smell, though some folk get mad if you tell them so, but the Upper Niger tang was new to me, and I couldn’t help thinking what a place that must be for a hunt if even a well-washed black prince left such a bouquet behind him. I suppose you are surprised to hear a fox-terrier using French words, but I learnt them from Mademoiselle, Minkie’s governess, who went away last month.

Next morning, at breakfast, all the talk was of Prince John and the ju-ju. Schwartz had hunted high and low for his doll, but, considering that it was in Minkie’s pocket, he was not likely to find it. If only he had a nose like me he would soon have been on its track. I fancied the Guv’nor was not altogether pleased that such a rough-and-tumble performance should have taken place at Holly Lodge on a Christmas Eve, and Schwartz was so put out by the loss of the ju-ju that it cast rather a gloom over the household—excepting Minkie, Tibbie and me, of course. As for that fool of a parrot, he, or she—blessed if I can tell one parrot from another, but this one never lays an egg, though everyone calls him “Polly”—well, he was nearly delirious with excitement, because Christmas time brings nuts into his cage. Once the conversation came pretty close to our little secret.

“By the way, Millicent, that negro had a black bag in his hand when he drove home with us last night, didn’t he?” inquired the Old Man, tackling Minkie rather suddenly.

“Oh, yes, father dear. I saw it quite plainly. Did he take it upstairs, Evangeline?”

“I dunno, miss. He fair flummaxed me, he did, with his bowin’ and scrapin’ an, lah-di-dah manners. As I said to Cook—”

“That will do, Evangeline,” put in Mam. “Bring some more toast, please.”

Minkie had steered the question off smartly, but the Guv’nor stuck to his point.

“There can be no doubt the rascal brought the bag into the house. I remember now seeing him carry it into the hall. Yet it was not in his possession when we caught him in the garden, and it must have been found if it were lying among the shrubs, or he had left it in the house. By Jove! Is it possible that he had an accomplice? Really, Schwartz, you ought to have called in the police if the matter is so serious.”

“This quarrel is between Prince John and myself,” said Schwartz, sullenly. “He may have had others to help, though it is difficult to see how that could be, under the circumstances. But this is only the second round of a big fight. He and I will meet again, probably on a certain island in the Niger which we both know well. Then we shall settle the ownership of that small god, for keeps.”

“Oh!” cried Dolly, “is it an idol?”

Then Schwartz tried to pull himself together.

“No, Miss Dorothy, not an idol, but a fetish,” he said, with his usual grin. “The fact is, I fear I have led you to believe that I attach an exaggerated value to it. It is only a bit of carved ivory, which the natives regard as a talisman. But it had a sentimental interest for me, much as a gambler at Monte Carlo might prize a champagne cork, or a piece of coal, or some equally ridiculous charm which he had carried in his pocket on the night of a big coup.”

“Me-ow!” said Tibbie, looking up at Minkie.

“Yes, darling,” said Minkie, “the dish is going out now, and I have told cook to save you the tit-bits. Dan, come back here! Who stole Tibbie’s milk last night?”

“MisÈre de Dieu!” as mademoiselle said when she was turning over the strawberry plants and grabbed a wasp—who split on me? Was it Evangeline? Wait till I catch her sliding down to the front gate to-night when her young man whistles “Annie Rooney.” I’ll raise the house.

“I suppose you had some lively times occasionally in West Africa, Schwartz?” said the Old Man cheerfully, his idea being to swing the talk away from a topic which his guest seemed to avoid.

“Y-yes, for a few minutes every now and then. But the excitement soon passed. For the rest, it was deadly dull, a sort of slow crescendo up to the boiling point of fever, and a gradual diminuendo back to flabby health again. It is no country for a white man, unless he wants his relations to collect his life insurance.”

“Yet you made money there?”

“Oh, yes. Why else should one go to such a filthy swamp?”

“Do you mean to say that the natives of a fever-laden district are physically up to the standard of the fellow we collared last night?”

“No; he comes from the highlands, where the country is altogether different. But the money is made at the ports and trading stations.”

“Any sport?”

“Very little, the bush is too dense.”

“Then why do the blacks want gas-pipe guns and coal-dust gunpowder?” asked Minkie, who was making a jam sandwich.

“To shoot the whites,” replied Schwartz. “So you see it would be bad for our health if the traders gave them good weapons and ammunition.”

“That explains it,” said Minkie.

“Explains what, dear?” inquired Mam, and Schwartz squirmed a bit until Minkie said:

“Something I read in a paper, mother. These wicked negroes pay high prices for rifles, and of course it is best to let them believe they are buying the genuine article.”

Mam was puzzled, but the Guv’nor laughed.

“Excellent!” he cried. “I am glad to hear that one member of the family has grasped the true principles of commercial success.”

“I’m sure I don’t know where Millicent gets her ideas from,” sighed Mam. “When I was her age I could no more have said such a thing than I could have flown.“

“And you certainly were never built for flying, less now than ever,” smiled her husband. Of course, I paid little heed to all this chaff, because I was bolting half that jam sandwich, which Minkie had dropped. Evangeline saw what happened, and said nothing, so it will be “Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,” to-night. But I woke up to the sounds of battle when Mam wanted to know who was going to church. Everybody said “I,” except Schwartz, who had letters to write. You ought to have watched his face when Minkie said quietly:

“In that case you will miss seeing Jack Stanhope, the friend of whom I was telling you yesterday.”

“Jack! Is he at home?” Dolly blurted out, and then blushed right down her neck.

“Yes. Didn’t you know?”

“How could I? If it comes to that, how do you know?”

“He sent me a Christmas picture postcard last evening, one of the new ones, with the season’s wishes and a lot of robins on one side and a ha-penny stamp with the address and a little bit of a letter on the other. Here it is. Shall I read it?”

“Yes,” said the Guv’nor rather grimly. Outside the gang, he understood Minkie better than anybody else, and he evidently wondered why she was making such a dead set against Schwartz.

Minkie produced the card from the pocket which held the ju-ju. It was a deep pocket, lengthened by herself; she often needed it to hide a young rabbit when I had induced one to leave his home and friends, because keepers make a beastly fuss about these small matters if they hear of them.

“It has the West Strand postmark, 9 A.M., December 24th,” said she, “and this is what he writes: ‘Dear Minkie: Just arrived from Marseilles, ex s.s. Persia. It was enough to freeze Dan’s tail off crossing the Channel, but I am glad to be here early, as I can do a bit of shopping (being in need of decoration) before I run down to Dale End. I shall be strolling past the Lodge about six o’clock, and will be delighted if you are visible. Otherwise, we shall meet at Church to-morrow, and exchange winks if Grampus is there too. Yours ever, Jack. P.S. I have brought you a pet mongoose.’ That is all.”

“Quite enough, too. May I ask who ‘Grampus’ is?” said her father.

“His uncle. Jack depends on him for his allowance, so he has to humor him, but he never agreed with him about that shooting squabble, you know.”

“I know nothing about his views, and care less, and I do not wish you to exchange either postcards or winks with him or any of his name.”

“Tom,” put in Mam, gently, “this is Christmas morning.”

“I have not forgotten that, my dear. Nor have I forgotten this day two years ago, when the other Stanhope ignored my proffered hand before a dozen of our mutual acquaintances. You hear, Millicent? I have spoken.”

“Yes, father dear, but it is such a pity about the mongoose. And I had a new word I wanted to surprise Jack with. Christmas picture postcard is such a mouthful, so I intended to call it a Chris-card. Don’t you think that rather neat?”

“I do, but it is not comparable to the neatness with which you draw a red herring across the scent. Of course, if he sends you the mongoose, you may keep it, and write a civil note of thanks, but we can hardly indulge in a close friendship with the nephew when the uncle cannot find a good word to say for us.”

I was that delighted that I scraped Minkie’s leg to tell her I was underneath the table. A mongoose coming to join the family! What is a mongoose, anyhow? Has it four legs, or two? Can it fight? I must have murmured my thoughts aloud, because the parrot gave a screech that made Schwartz jump.

“Go and hide in the nearest rabbit burrow, little dog,” he yelled. “Run away and bury yourself with a bone. When that mongoose turns up he’ll chase you into the next parish. Oh, Christopher! Aren’t we havin’ a beano? Another rum ’ot, please, miss.”

I kept my temper. There is no use arguing with a parrot. You can’t get at him, and he has an amazing variety of language at command; but I must state one small point in his favor; if you pay no heed to his vulgarity, and cut out of his talk the silly bits which seem to please people who wear clothes, he gives one a lot of useful information. He will not say a word in a friendly way, same as I give even Tibbie the nod if there’s a mouse in the kitchen. The best plan is to sauce him, or sneer at him. Then he flies into a rage and talks like a book.

So, “Polly,” said I, “you shouldn’t strain your voice in that fashion. It will make your feet ache.”

He knew what I meant well enough, because just then he was hanging head downwards from his perch. He reached out and took a grip of a steel bar in his beak, pretending he had hold of me by the neck.

“If I were you I’d whitewash my face in the hope that the mongoose would not recognize me after the first round,” he croaked.

“I believe you are afraid of the thing yourself.”

“Say not so, whiskers. Kiss me, mother, kiss your darling. A full-grown mongoose will make you the sickest dog in the British Isles. Whoop at him, Boxer! Back to him, Bendigo! O my sainted aunt, I’ll watch that snake-catcher chuck you into the lake. Nah, then, who’ll tike odds. I’ll back the fee-ald. The fee-ald a powney!”

“Evangeline,” said Mam, “put the green cloth over that bird. He grows worse daily, and I cannot make out where he learns so much cockney slang.”

Minkie kicked me under the table. She guessed I had been teasing him. At any rate, the parrot clearly expected to witness a first-rate set-to when the mongoose arrived. In his own mind he had already taken a ticket for the front row of the stalls, and I meant to oblige him with a star turn. A mongoose may be able to catch a snake, but he must not put on airs with a dog who killed thirty rats in one minute the last time Farmer Hodson threshed his barley stack.

I heard Schwartz telling Dolly that he had changed his mind and would go to church, so at half-past ten they walked off to the village. It was quite warm in the sun, but the air was nippy, so I gave Tib a run across the lawn when I found her stalking a sparrow; then I went round to see Bob. He was busy eating. I suppose a horse has to get through a lot of hay before he fills up. Hay is dry stuff at the best. I like an odd snack between meals myself, but the only chew worth considering is something you can load in quickly before any other fellow has a chance of grabbing it.

Anyhow, when I asked Bob what a mongoose was, he was rather short, and said he had no time for riddles, as he had been dreaming of niggers all night.

“Tell you what,” said I, “hay makes you nervous. It must be like tea. Cookie says—”

Then Bob gave his horse laugh.

“Cookie calls it ‘tea,’ does she?” he roared. “You give her my compliments and ask her to draw some of that tea for me in a jug. Tib knows where the barrel is.”

So I trotted back to Polly.

“Look here!” I said, “tell me what a mongoose is, and I’ll nick some grapes for you.”

He was singing “Hello, my baby,” but he stopped.

“It’s an ichneumon,” he answered. That nettled me.

“Anything like a cockatoo?” I asked.

“You’re a low-bred cur,” he screamed, “an ignorant mongrel. You shouldn’t seek information. What you want is a ticket for the Dogs’ Home. Help! Help!”

“Why, you hook-nosed nut-cracker, what’s the good of telling anybody that a mongoose is an ichneumon? How would you like it if I said you were a zygodactyl?”

He nearly had a fit. His language brought Evangeline from the attic: she thought the house was on fire. The fact is, Minkie dug that word out of the dictionary, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to hand it on to Polly; now he has had it, fair between the eyes.

I heard afterwards that if affairs were lively at Holly Lodge it was not all peace and goodwill to men at the parish church. Grampus had an attack of gout—a day earlier than usual—so Jack went to Christmas service alone. He winked twice at Minkie, but she gazed at him steadily with the only eye he could see. Dolly was entirely taken up with her prayer-book, so Jack took careful stock of the red-haired man with the map of Judea in his face. But a captain of hussars who has won the D. S. O. has no reason to be ashamed of being alive, so, when our people came through the lych gate, there was Captain Stanhope with his hat off, smiling quite pleasantly, and wishing them the compliments of the season.

Of course, Mam and the Guv’nor, being gentlefolk, had to respond. Schwartz made to walk on with Dolly, but she stopped, too, and Minkie shook hands with Jack first of anybody.

The old man was hardly comfortable; he nudged Mam’s arm, and they would have joined Schwartz if Jack hadn’t said:

“By the way, Mr. Grosvenor, I want to have a chat with you on a matter of some importance. Can you spare me a few minutes now, or shall I call later in the day?”

Dolly blushed, and her father saw it. He stiffened a bit, just as I do when my hair rises.

“I am sorry, Captain Stanhope, but I fear that any exchange of confidences between us will not only be useless but open to misinterpretation,” he said coldly.

“Let me explain that I am running dead against my uncle’s wishes in seeking this interview,” protested Jack. “Believe me, I am actuated by the best of good feeling towards you and your family, sir.”

“I do credit that; but any discussion of the point must inflict unnecessary pain.”

“This is really a serious matter.”

“So is everything where your uncle and I are concerned. Come on, my dear. We cannot keep Mr. Schwartz waiting.”

The Guv’nor lifted his hat and marched away. Mam said nothing, Dolly didn’t care tuppence how her skirt draped, Minkie said that if the frost continued there would soon be thick ice, and Schwartz grinned. Dolly thought she would like to slap Schwartz, so she joined Minkie on the high path above the road, where the hens have to fly when I get after them.

“I think it’s too bad of father to snub Jack in that way,” she said, half sobbing.

“Dad is making a mistake,” agreed Minkie. “If you take my advice you will come with me this afternoon and find out what it is Jack wants to say.”

“How can I? Where can I see him? We can’t go to the Manor House.”

“I have arranged to meet Jack at half-past two near the Four Lanes.”

“You have arranged!—”

“Yes. While you were squinting up to find out if your hat was at the right tilt I was watching Jack drawing a cross and 2.30 on the gravel with his stick. I nodded, so that is all right. Are you coming?”

Dolly was flurried. “I dunno,” she murmured. “You don’t understand things, Minkie. Dad is desperately anxious that we should not offend Mr. Schwartz, who can be either a very good friend or a dangerous enemy. Oh, sis! What a happy world it would be if we had all the money we want!”

“P’raps. Schwartz is rich, and he looked happy last night, didn’t he? Jack’s uncle is rolling in coin, and to-day he is nursing a foot the size of an elephant’s.”

“I am not thinking of myself, Minkie.”

“I know that. You are trying to help Dad, and he is fretting because he has to pay a lot of money on the 10th of January.”

Dolly opened her eyes widely.

“Who told you?” she cried.

“Sh-s-s-sh. There’s Mam calling. She wants us to look in at nurse’s cottage. What about Jack—quick!”

“I’ll see,” whispered Dolly.

People who play poker are a bit doubtful when they say that. If you add the recognized fact that the woman who hesitates is lost you will understand at once that when Minkie and I climbed over the orchard fence at 2.15, Miss Dorothy came running after us.

“Mam has gone upstairs, and Mr. Schwartz and father are in the library, so I will join you in your stroll,” she said, trying to keep up a pretence.

“Step out, then,” said Minkie. “Jack will be waiting.”

He was. He saw us coming long before we reached the cross roads, and his first words meant war.

“Who is this fellow Schwartz?” he demanded.

“A friend of—father’s,” said Dorothy.

“Well, he is a rogue,” said Jack. “I wanted to warn Mr. Grosvenor about him this morning, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Oh, was that it?” and Dorothy’s nose went up in the air.

“Partly. Not all. I say, Minkie, if you take Dan into the warren you will find a heap of rabbits. The keepers are a mile away. I told them you were coming.”

“Then Dan can go by himself. I am far more interested in Schwartz than Dot is. Do you know anything about ju-jus?”

“By Jove, Minkie, you do come to the point. Why, that blessed nigger prince is at the Manor now, plotting all sorts of mischief with my uncle.”

“How did he get there? I suppose you met him last night?”

“Yes. I was passing along the road when I heard Jim turn him out of the gate, and order him not to show his black mug inside the grounds again. I wondered what on earth a darky was doing at Dale End. Thinking he was a Hindu, one of the natives who come to England to read up law, I spoke to him, but as soon as we reached a lamp I saw he was a negro. He was in awful trouble, and appeared to have been badly handled. As soon as he discovered that I was a friend of yours—which I mean to remain, no matter how your father and my uncle disagree—he became very excited and appealed to me for assistance. The villagers spotted him and began to gather, so I took him to the Manor, unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?” demanded Minkie.

“Because some of the servants told my uncle he was there, and the old boy made me bring him upstairs.”

“Well?”

“I nearly lost my temper with both of them. It seems that Schwartz, who was a low-down trader on the Niger, stole some sort of ju-ju, or small fetish, belonging to the Kwantu bushmen, the most powerful tribe in the hinterland. That was three years ago. Since then he has become enormously wealthy, and the niggers say it is because he holds this ju-ju, which is the luckiest thing in Africa. They, at least, have had all sorts of plagues since they lost it, tsetse fly, smallpox, bad rubber years, and I don’t know what besides. At any rate they are on the verge of rebellion. Their ju-ju men, or wizards, are preaching wholesale murder of the whites. Some German traders have supplied them with Mannlicher rifles and ammunition, and there is real danger of a terrific mutiny. Now, I am a British officer, and I have some experience of superstitious natives, if not of negroes, so I can quite realize what may happen out there if the cause of disaffection is not removed. You can hardly grasp the serious nature of the business, Minkie, but Dorothy, being older—”

“Can appreciate it much better, of course,” said Minkie. “Yet I am beginning to see things. Did Prince John say what would happen if the ju-ju were restored?”

“That is a very sensible question for a kid,” observed Jack, approvingly. “He vows that the whole affair will end the instant the Kwantu ju-ju men receive back their fetish. He, and a few leading bushmen, some of whom have been educated in England, remember, have restrained the mutiny by a solemn undertaking to bring the god home before the spring rains begin. They have offered Schwartz all the money they can scrape together if he will only give it up, but he laughs at them and defies them.”

“He didn’t seem to laugh last night,” put in Minkie.

“Do you believe he has really lost it?”

“Oh yes. I am quite sure of that?” and she felt in her pocket absent-mindedly.

“Well, I am at my wits’ end to decide how to act. Prince John is equally certain that Schwartz has recovered it. When Dan brought him down, a small bag in which he had placed the ju-ju was knocked out of his hand, and it must, therefore, be in Holly Lodge somewhere. The negro is a determined man, and there is a look in his eyes which I have seen in a Pathan’s when—Well, no matter. If your father will not meet me he will at least read a letter. Now, Minkie, it will soon be too dark to find anything among the bushes—”

“Rats!” cried Minkie, so sharply that I jumped, thinking she meant it. “You’ve got six months’ furlough, so you’ll meet Dot often enough. Please go on. What does Prince John intend to do next?”

“He may endeavor to burgle your house. He will kill Schwartz if need be. He will certainly kill Dan.”

Oh, indeed! I pricked up my ears at this. What between the nigger and the mongoose I’m in for a lively time. Nobody is going to be happy until I am cold meat.

“But they will put him in gaol if he tries burglary?” said Minkie, who was unmoved by the prospect of my early death.

“He says that Schwartz simply dare not face him in a court of law.”

“It is our house, you know?”

Captain Stanhope sighed perplexedly. He was a man, discussing hard things with two girls. Minkie gave me a look as much as to say “Don’t miss a word of this,” and went on:

“Of course, one can’t credit the absurd idea that a piece of wood, or brass, or whatever it is, can bring good luck to anyone who possesses it.”

“Our ebony acquaintance holds so strongly to the absurdity that he will stop short of nothing in the effort to secure it. And my old fool of an—I beg your pardon, I mean my respected uncle, is actually plotting with him as to ways and means. He is in favor of informing the Government, but the Kwantu gentleman says the Colonial office will scoff at the notion. He is right there. The officials in Whitehall always do scoff until a certain number of white men and women are murdered, and an army corps has to be sent to exact vengeance.”

“It seems to me that the killing will begin here, probably with a white dog—r-r-rip!” observed Minkie, stooping to dig me in the ribs.

“Mongoose!” I yelled, but she didn’t appear to take any notice.

“I wouldn’t write to dad if I were you,” she continued. “He would simply take sides with Schwartz. But you can write to me, if you like, only you must not wink, nor send postcards.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dorothy will tell you. Come on, Dan, let’s have a look at the warren.”

When we were quite by ourselves Minkie took the ivory doll from her pocket and surveyed it seriously.

“Ju-ju,” she said, “I hope you can really accomplish these wonders, because I’m going to do things, and there will be a fearful row if I don’t succeed.”

I nearly killed twice in ten minutes, but a warren is the deuce and all if some of the holes are not stopped and you have no ferret. When we rejoined the others any dog could see that Dorothy had been crying. Yet she didn’t exactly look miserable, like Jim’s wife looked when her first baby died. Women are queer. Sometimes you can’t tell whether they are glad or sorry, because they weep just the same.

The girls were dressing for dinner when a man in livery came with a wooden box and a note for “Miss Millicent Grosvenor.”

Oh, wow and wag everlasting—it’s the mongoose!