Chatterbox, 1906 Part 122

'That's all you girls care about!' said Jack, with contempt. 'Did you think he would bring her back here afterwards?'

'Of course. Where else should she go?'

'I dare say they would not tell a kid like you,' he answered loftily.

'They have taken a house at Southsea--miles away from here. _Now_ do you see why I have made this figure?'

'No-o-o!' she said, half crying.

'Oh, _do_ dry up, Gussie, or I won't tell you anything! Don't you remember in the history lesson this morning, Miss Gower told us that when people hated one another, ages ago, they got wizards to make wax images of their enemies, and let them melt slowly away, and as they melted, the other fellow began to get thin and ill--and went on getting thinner and iller, till---- '

'Till he died!' shrieked Gussie. 'Oh, Jack, you won't do that?'

The boy blew out the candle, and placed the figure opposite the fire, just inside the fender.

'We shall see!' he said mysteriously. 'I shall do it very slowly, a little bit each day, and watch the effect on Captain Halliard. He's coming here this evening, you know. Of course, Lilian will never want to marry a man who gets thinner and iller every day; but if that's not enough, and he still wants to carry off _my_ sister, I'll just---- '

'Children! children! open the door, quick! The hall is full of smoke.'

The girlish tones were emphasised by most undoubtedly manly thumps. Jack hesitated, but Gussie flew to turn the key.

Lilian Phillips rushed in, followed closely by a tall stranger. The draught from the open door located the origin of the smoke only too easily. The schoolroom curtains burst into flames!

Gussie ran up to her elder sister. Jack, the bold, the self-reliant, was momentarily paralysed.

It was the stranger who jumped on the sofa, and tore those curtains down--crus.h.i.+ng them with his hands--- stamping on them till the flames were extinguished, finally emerging from the smoking curtain with singed hair and beard, and shaking his scorched fingers, but otherwise calm and unruffled.

'Hullo, young man! Are you responsible for all this? What had you been up to? Guy Fawkes' Day is long past. All right, Lilian, don't bother about me. I'm not hurt--though I'm afraid as much cannot be said for the curtains.

'Oh, George, what should we have done without you? What a mercy it was you caught the afternoon train. What _were_ you two children doing?'

gasped Lilian, almost in one breath.

'Gussie wasn't doing anything!' a.s.serted Jack, stoutly. 'I had lit a candle. I don't see how that could have set the curtains on fire, though,' he added, gazing open-eyed at the stranger called 'George,' and trying to get between him and the fender.

'What did you do with the match?' demanded George, curtly.

'Chucked it away!' came the reply, with equal brevity.

The grown-ups exchanged significant glances.

'Why did you lock yourselves up here?' asked Lilian, laying gentle hands on her small brother's shoulders, and turning him round on the hearthrug to face her.

It was seldom that Jack resisted Lilian, and he did not do so now, though he wriggled, and cast a nervous glance over his shoulder.

'I--I----,' he began hesitatingly, when a loud laugh from George interrupted him.

'By Jove! here's a funny little image, Lilian! A sailor too, by all that's curious! Not _me_, eh?' he roared good-temperedly, as he fished the blue-bedaubed figure out of the fender, and, holding it at arm's length, surveyed it by the now cheerful blaze of the fire.

Jack wriggled himself free from his elder sister's grasp, and faced round.

'Are you Captain Halliard?'

'Certainly, young man.'

'Then I'm sorry I made _that_.'

'Why! it _is_ I, then? What should you be sorry for?' he asked, bewildered; 'it's not at all bad, for a young 'un--bar likeness, I hope!

Never mind, though, if you don't want to tell me,' he added, good-naturedly, sorry for the boy's evident embarra.s.sment.

But Jack continued: 'It _is_ you--and I made it of wax, so that it should melt, and you should get ill, and---- '

'Oh! you wicked boy!' exclaimed Lilian, aghast; 'what harm had George done you?'

'He wanted to take you away,' explained Jack sullenly, 'and I don't want him to. But I tell you I am sorry now about the image.'

'Why?' demanded Captain Halliard.

'You are a brave man. You pulled those curtains down. _I_ couldn't have done that! I don't care if you _do_ marry my sister now.'

'Hooray!' shouted Gussie, capering wildly about; 'and _now_ you'll let me be a bridesmaid, won't you, Jack? I didn't--oh, I didn't want that nasty wax image to melt all away!'

And so Jack learnt that magic is not only silly, but wrong, and found that Captain Halliard was after all not so terrible as to need a wizard to drive him away.

PUZZLERS FOR WISE HEADS.

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES ON PAGE 371.

13.--(A.) Orphan-age.

(B.) Book-worm.

(C.) Brim-stone.

(D.) Hare-bell.

(E.) Dove-tail.

(F.) Some-body.

AVERAGE.

In old French, 'aver' meant a horse. So it did in old Scotch, which still has not a few French words in its dialect. Burns, in his 'Dream,'

speaks of a horse as a 'n.o.ble aiver.'

In old times in Europe, a tenant was bound to do certain carting of grain or turf for the lord of the manor. In the yearly account this was set down as aver-age, or, as we might say, horse-age. The tenant had to strike a balance between his rent and his horse-work done, and this just proportion came to be known afterwards as average.