Nearly Bedtime Part 6

With the help of the policeman, who appeared at this moment, and watched by the usual curious crowd of onlookers, they bathed Gull's face with cold water, forced brandy between his lips, and chafed his cold hands.

Then it was that they discovered, tightly clasped in the hand upon which he had been lying, a folded leather case. The policeman unbent the convulsive fingers, and examined this with careful eyes.

"However did Gull get hold of _this_, I wonder?" was his exclamation.

Mr. Kingsley looked at it with a puzzled expression. It had a strange resemblance to his own pocket-book! Thrusting his hand hurriedly into his various pockets proved to him, without a doubt, that his it was indeed. And a few words were sufficient to convince the policeman of his right to claim it.

But here a sudden movement from Gull turned all eyes towards him once more.

He raised himself to a sitting position, and with one hand to his poor dazed head, gazed with dim, half-unconscious eyes at the other held before him--wide open and empty!

As he gazed, a bitter cry escaped his lips.

"Then the brute has made off with it, after all!"

This, you see, was the way in which Gull "eased himself," as he expressed it, and satisfied the demands that grat.i.tude made upon his honest heart.

I have very little more to tell you, and that you could almost guess for yourself.

Gull spent a few quiet days on his bed, attended devotedly by his little lads, who were much over-awed at father's "bein' took bad," and filled with wide-eyed wonder when "our gentleman" climbed the old staircase more than once, to see how father was, and to provide for him some new comfort.

Once again, two versions of a true story were told in two separate homes. It was the version that the "twinses" heard which was the shortest in the telling.

"Tell us all about it, father," said Bob, when Gull was "rested" enough to talk to his boys.

"Nay, lad, there ain't much to tell. I just collared the thief as he was making off with Mr. Kingsley's pocket-book, and he didn't like it somehow, and threw me down. But that's all about it."

"Oh! but you got the pocket-book from him first, you know, father."

"Ay! I did that," Gull answered, with a smile; and there the _telling_ of the story ended. I don't know when the _acting_ of it will be finished, for there was a difference in the lives of Gull and his "twinses" from that day forward--"all along of Mr. Kingsley's kindness,"

as they would tell you; but "because I have found an honest man," as Mr.

Kingsley himself would say to little Patsy.

[Printer's decoration]

[Printer's decoration]

_THE B. D. S._

The Bill had pa.s.sed the House of Commons [I mean, you know, that nurse had approved of it], and much anxiety was felt among the little pleaders as to its first reading in the Upper House--_i. e._ would mother say "Yes!"

They all knew that mother had a clear judgment; but it was just her far-seeing power that made them tremble. She might see breakers ahead which they knew nothing about.

And perhaps mother _did_ see a few objections to this new plan. However that may be, as the little ones presented their pet.i.tion, she smiled.

This was, indeed, a good sign, and more than that, the smile was followed by a ready consent as the plan was unfolded.

The Bill was pa.s.sed. Hurrah!

The B. D. Society was allowed; and mother had actually agreed to be patroness and prize-giver.

"What a dear, jolly mother she is!"

"She's a duck, and no mistake!"

Rather unbusinesslike language, but very expressive!

Well, but what did it mean, this B. D. S.?

It was only a Bedroom Decorating Society. But it seemed a very beautiful idea to the four curly headed little girls who sat squeezed up together in the large nursery armchair.

Pattie, Mollie, Kitty, and Norah. Four little Irish maidens, with this lovely plan to talk over and make perfect, while a snowstorm kept them indoors to-day.

_Pattie._ "Don't let's tell each other how we'll do our rooms until afterwards."

_Norah._ "You'll _never_ keep your plans to yourself. You never _could_ keep anything in."

_Mollie (up in arms for her sister)._ "Don't be nasty, Norah, or something _bad_ will happen to you!"

_Norah (looking a little ashamed of herself and wisely changing the subject)._ "Let's begin now. We'll take all the things out of our rooms first, and then put them back in new places--shall us?"

As you may guess, the B. D. S. was intended to promote a general taste for artistic style in the children's bedrooms, or as Kitty expressed it, simply and to the point, "It is to make us put our things _illigantly_."

Mother determined to let this new idea have a fair trial; though she could not help feeling a little nervous as she heard the scrimmaging of the furniture, and thought of possible breakages.

She sat at her needlework, and listened to the distant sounds which reached her faintly from the rooms above. Then she began to wonder whether the excitement and interest would last out the fortnight, at the end of which she had been asked to present a prize.

Suddenly her motherly heart gave a terrible throb.

There was a thud--thud--thud, and that horrid b.u.mping sound, as something soft tumbled over and over down the stairs.

With a white face she rushed out of the dining-room, to see little Norah and a large bolster roll on to the floor at her feet!

A breathless scream escaped from the terrified child.

The three other curly heads were peeping through the banisters, and three pairs of Irish blue eyes were looking horribly scared and unhappy.

But mother did not see them.

She picked up the screaming Norah, and carried her into the dining-room, while nurse came running from the kitchen and her ironing.

All the time that the sobbing little victim of the B. D. S. was being soothed into calmness, and the big swelling wheal on her forehead bathed and tended, Pattie, Mollie, and Kitty--upstairs--looked at one another in frightened silence. Then Mollie said sadly--