“Yes, perhaps he’s something allegorical.  A sort of pageant.  Good Luck or something.  It’s not quite the sort of thing I expected, I must admit.”

“What do you think of the Queen’s dress?  I always thought Miss Dewhurst had better taste.  Rather tawdry, I call it.”

“I think the moustache is a mistake.  It gives quite a common look to the whole thing.  I wonder who he’s meant to be?  Pan, do you think?” uncertainly.

“Oh, no, nothing so pagan, I hope,” said an elderly matron, horrified.  “He’s that Brown boy, you know.  There always seems to be something queer about anything he’s in.  I’ve noticed it often.  But I hope he’s meant to be something more Christian than Pan, though one never knows in these days,” she added darkly.

William’s sister had recognised her possessions, and was gasping in anger.

William’s father, who knew William, was smiling sardonically.

William’s mother was smiling proudly.

“You’re always running down William,” she said to the world in general, “but look at him now.  He’s got a very important part, and he said nothing about it at home.  I call it very nice and modest of him.  And what a dear little girl.”

Bettine, standing on the platform with William’s hand holding hers and the Maypole dancers dancing round her, was radiant with pride and happiness.

* * * * *

And Evangeline Fish in the wood-shed was just beginning the last currant cake.

CHAPTER IX

THE REVENGE

William was a scout.  The fact was well known.  There was no one within a five-mile radius of William’s home who did not know it.  Sensitive old ladies had fled shuddering from their front windows when William marched down the street singing (the word is a euphemism) his scout songs in his strong young voice.  Curious smells emanated from the depth of the garden where William performed mysterious culinary operations.  One old lady whose cat had disappeared looked at William with dour suspicion in her eye whenever he passed.  Even the return of her cat a few weeks later did not remove the hostility from her gaze whenever it happened to rest upon William.

William’s family had welcomed the suggestion of William’s becoming a scout.

“It will keep him out of mischief,” they had said.

They were notoriously optimistic where William was concerned.

William’s elder brother only was doubtful.

“You know what William is,” he said, and in that dark saying much was contained.

Things went fairly smoothly for some time.  He took the scouts’ law of a daily deed of kindness in its most literal sense.  He was to do one (and one only) deed of kindness a day.  There were times when he forced complete strangers, much to their embarrassment, to be the unwilling recipients of his deed of kindness.  There were times when he answered any demand for help with a cold:  “No, I’ve done it to-day.”