Amusement Only

"I beg your pardon. Can I see your father?"

"Oh, father's been dead for years."

"Then to whom have I the pleasure of speaking?"

"I'm Madge. I'm mother now."

"You are-mother now?"

"The trouble will be about where you are to sleep-unless it's with the boys. The rooms are all anyhow, and I'm sure I don't know where the beds are."

"I suppose there are servants in the house?"

She shook her head.

"No. The boys thought that they were nuisances so we got rid of them. The last went yesterday. She wouldn't do any work, so we thought she'd better go."

"Under those circumstances I think it probable that you were right. Then am I to understand that there are children?"

"Rather!"

As she spoke there came a burst of laughter from the other end of the passage. I spun round. No one was in sight. She explained.

"They're waiting round the corner. Perhaps we'd better have them here. You people, you'd better come and let me introduce you to Mr. Christopher."

A procession began to appear from round the corner of boys and girls. In front was a girl of about sixteen. She advanced with outstretched hand and an air of self-possession which took me at a disadvantage.

"I'm Bessie. I'm sorry we kept you waiting at the door, but the fact is that we thought it was Eliza's brother who had come to insult us again."

"Pray, don't mention it. I am glad that it was not Eliza's brother."

"So am I. He is a dreadful man."

I shook hands with the rest of them. There were six more, four boys and two girls. They formed a considerable congregation as they stood eyeing me with inquiring glances. Madge was the first to speak.

"I wondered all along if he would take it as a joke or not, and you see he hasn't. I thought all the time that it was a risky thing to do."

"I like that! You keep your thoughts to yourself then. It was you proposed it. You said you'd been reading about something of the kind in a story, and you voted for our advertising ourselves for a lark."

The speaker was the biggest boy, a good-looking youngster, with sallow cheeks and shrewd black eyes.

"But, Rupert, I never meant it to go so far as this."

"How far did you mean it to go then? It was your idea all through. You sent in the advertisement, you wrote the letters, and now he's here. If you didn't mean it, why didn't you stop his coming?"

"Rupert!"

The girls cheeks were crimson. Bessie interposed.

"The thing is that as he is here it's no good worrying about whose fault it is. We shall simply have to make the best of it." Then, to me, "I suppose you really have come to stay?"

"I confess that I had some notion of the kind-to spend an old-fashioned Christmas."

At this there was laughter, chiefly from the boys. Rupert exclaimed:

"A nice sort of old-fashioned Christmas you'll find it will be. You'll be sorry you came before it's through."

"I am not so sure of that."

There appeared to be something in my tone which caused a touch of silence to descend upon the group. They regarded each other doubtfully, as if in my words a reproof was implied. Bessie was again the spokeswoman.

"Of course, now that you have come, we mean to be nice to you, that is as nice as we can. Because the thing is that we are not in a condition to receive visitors. Do we look as if we were?"

To be frank, they did not. Even Madge was a little unkempt, while the boys were in what I believe is the average state of the average boy.

"And," murmured Madge, "where is Mr. Christopher to sleep?"

"What is he to eat?" inquired Bessie. She glanced at my packages. "I suppose you have brought nothing with you?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. I had hoped to have found something ready for me on my arrival."

Again they peeped at each other, as if ashamed. Madge repeated her former suggestion.

"There's to-morrow's dinner."

"Oh, hang it!" exclaimed Rupert. "It's not so bad as that. There's a ham."

"Uncooked."

"You can cut a steak off, or whatever you call it, and have it broiled."

A meal was got ready, in the preparation of which every member of the family took a hand. And a room was found for me, in which was a blazing fire and traces of recent feminine occupation. I suspected that Madge had yielded her own apartment as a shelter for the stranger. By the time I had washed and changed my clothes, the impromptu dinner, or supper, or whatever it was, was ready.

A curious repast it proved to be; composed of oddly contrasted dishes, cooked-and sometimes uncooked-in original fashion. But hunger, that piquant sauce, gave it a relish of its own. At first no one seemed disposed to join me. By degrees, however, one after another found a knife and fork, until all the eight were seated with me round the board, eating, some of them, as if for dear life.

"The fact is," explained Rupert, "we're a rum lot. We hardly ever sit down together. We don't have regular meals, but whenever anyone feels peckish, he goes and gets what there is, and cooks it and eats it on his own."

"It's not quite so bad as that," protested Madge, "though it's pretty bad."

It did seem pretty bad, from the conventional point of view. From their conversation, which was candour itself, I gleaned details which threw light upon the peculiar position of affairs. It seemed that their father had been dead some seven years. Their mother, who had been always delicate, had allowed them to run nearly wild. Since she died, some ten months back, they appeared to have run quite wild. The house, with some six hundred acres of land, was theirs, and an income, as to whose exact amount no one seemed quite clear.

"It's about eight hundred a year," said Rupert.

"I don't think it's quite so much," doubted Madge.

"I'm sure it's more," declared Bessie. "I believe we're being robbed."

I thought it extremely probable. They must have had peculiar parents. Their father had left everything absolutely to their mother, and the mother, in her turn, everything in trust to Madge, to be shared equally among them all. Madge was an odd trustee. In her hands the household had become a republic, in which every one did exactly as he or she pleased. The result was chaos. No one wanted to go to school, so no one went. The servants, finding themselves provided with eight masters and mistresses, followed their example, and did as they liked. Consequently, after sundry battles royal-lively episodes some of them had evidently been-one after the other had been got rid of, until, now, not one remained. Plainly the house must be going to rack and ruin.