“Will I be able to go swimmin’?”

“It won’t be too cold!  Well, if I wrap up warm, will I be able to go swimmin’?”

“Can I catch fishes?”

“Are there lots of smugglers smugglin’ there?”

“Well, I’m only askin’, you needn’t get mad!”

One afternoon Mrs. Brown missed her best silver tray and searched the house high and low for it wildly, while dark suspicions of each servant in turn arose in her usually unsuspicious breast.

It was finally discovered in the garden.  William had dug a large hole in one of the garden beds.  Into the bottom of this he had fitted the tray and had lined the sides with bricks.  He had then filled it with water, and taking off his shoes and stockings stepped up and down his narrow pool.  He was distinctly aggrieved by Mrs. Brown’s reproaches.

“Well, I was practisin’ paddlin’, ready for goin’ to the seaside.  I didn’t mean to rune your tray.  You talk as if I meant to rune your tray.  I was only practisin’ paddlin’.”

At last the day of departure arrived.  William was instructed to put his things ready on his bed, and his mother would then come and pack for him.  He summoned her proudly over the balusters after about twenty minutes.

“I’ve got everythin’ ready, Mother.”

Mrs. Brown ascended to his room.

Upon his bed was a large pop-gun, a football, a dormouse in a cage, a punchball on a stand, a large box of “curios,” and a buckskin which was his dearest possession and had been presented to him by an uncle from South Africa.

Mrs. Brown sat down weakly on a chair.

“You can’t possibly take any of these things,” she said faintly but firmly.

“Well, you said put my things on the bed for you to pack an’ I’ve put them on the bed, an’ now you say——­”

“I meant clothes.”

“Oh, clothes!” scornfully.  “I never thought of clothes.”

“Well, you can’t take any of these things, anyway.”

William hastily began to defend his collection of treasures.

“I mus’ have the pop-gun ’cause you never know.  There may be pirates an’ smugglers down there, an’ you can kill a man with a pop-gun if you get near enough and know the right place, an’ I might need it.  An’ I must have the football to play on the sands with, an’ the punchball to practise boxin’ on, an’ I must have the dormouse, ‘cause—­’cause to feed him, an’ I must have this box of things and this skin to show to folks I meet down at the seaside, ’cause they’re int’restin’.”

But Mrs. Brown was firm, and William reluctantly yielded.

In a moment of weakness, finding that his trunk was only three-quarter filled by his things, she slipped in his beloved buckskin, while William himself put the pop-gun inside when no one was looking.

They had been unable to obtain a furnished house, so had to be content with a boarding house.  Mr. Brown was eloquent on the subject.