He looked at it longingly.  They’d probably counted them and knew just how many there ought to be.  Mean sort of thing they would do.  And they’d be in counting them every other minute just to see if he’d taken one.  Well, he was going to score off somebody, somehow.  Make him go to bed early indeed!  He stood with knit brows, deep in thought, then his face cleared and he smiled.  He’d got it!  For the next five minutes he munched the delicious pears, but, at the end, the piled-up pyramid was apparently exactly as he found it, not a pear gone, only—­on the inner side of each pear, the side that didn’t show, was a huge semicircular bite.  William wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve.  They were jolly good pears.  And a blissful vision came to him of the faces of the guests as they took the pears, of the faces of his father and mother and Robert and Ethel.  Oh, crumbs!  He chuckled to himself as he went down to the kitchen again.

“I say, cook, could you make a small one—­quite a small one—­for threepence-halfpenny?”

Cook laughed.

“I was only pulling your leg, Master William.  I’ve got one made and locked up in the larder.”

“That’s all right,” said William.  “I—­wanted them to have a cream blanc-mange, that’s all.”

“Oh, they’ll have it all right; they won’t leave much for you.  I only made one!”

“Did you say locked in the larder?” said William carelessly.  “It must be a bother for you to lock the larder door each time you go in?”

“Oh, no trouble, Master William, thank you,” said cook sarcastically; “there’s more than the cream blanc-mange there; there’s pasties and cakes and other things.  I’m thinking of the last party your ma gave!”

William had the grace to blush.  On that occasion William and a friend had spent the hour before supper in the larder, and supper had to be postponed while fresh provisions were beaten up from any and every quarter.  William had passed a troubled night and spent the next day in bed.

“Oh, then!  That was a long time ago.  I was only a kid then.”

“Umph!” grunted cook.  Then, relenting, “Well, if there’s any cream blanc-mange left I’ll bring it up to you in bed.  Now that’s a promise.  Here, Emma, put these sandwiches in the larder.  Here’s the key!  Now mind you lock it after you!”

“Cook!  Just come here for a minute.”

It was the voice of William’s mother from the library.  William’s heart rose.  With cook away from the scene of action great things might happen.  Emma took the dish of sandwiches, unlocked the pantry door, and entered.  There was a crash of crockery from the back kitchen.  Emma fled out, leaving the door unlocked.  After she had picked up several broken plates, which had unaccountably slipped from the shelves, she returned and locked the pantry door.

William, in the darkness within, heaved a sigh of relief.  He was in, anyway; how he was going to get out he wasn’t quite sure.  He stood for a few minutes in rapt admiration of his own cleverness.  He’d scored off cook!  Crumbs!  He’d scored off cook!  So far, at any rate.  The first thing to do was to find the cream blanc-mange.  He found it at last and sat down with it on the bread-pan to consider his next step.