No sooner had they set foot on the bottom step than there came running out of the crowd two pretty little boys, one carrying a great bunch of violets and the other a bunch of daffodils. The violets were evidently intended for Margaret and the daffodils for Frances, but unfortunately, just as he reached the top step, Margaret's little boy caught his toe and down he fell, all down the steps, making a great clatter, and into the water he would certainly have rolled had not Margaret caught him, when, putting her foot on the next step above, she set him upon her knee. "Oh, you poor little boy!" she exclaimed. "You did hurt yourself, didn't you?" "Don't cry, Dearie," said Frances, bending over him with her handkerchief in her hand, all ready to dry his tears. She made sure he would cry tremendously; for what little boy would not after falling down twelve steps and knocking his knees and his nose and his elbows on every single one of them? But this little boy, greatly to their surprise, did not make a sound. He puckered up his face, indeed, as though he would very much like to cry, but he did not. Instead of that, he looked hard at the Court Crier, as though he expected _him_ to do something, though what the little boy could possibly expect of a thin, dried up, bald headed old gentleman like the Court Crier, the two children could not imagine. The little boy, though, evidently knew what he was about. "Where's my caddy?" shouted the Court Crier in a great hurry; whereupon there ran out of the crowd another little boy with a number on his hat, who carried hung around his neck with a pink ribbon, a little oblong box, like an old-fashioned tea-caddy, divided into two compartments. Lifting the lid of this box, the Court Crier took out of the left hand compartment a large, clean pocket handkerchief, and then--! Down he plumped on the top step and began crying floods of tears, bawling and snuffling and making a great to do. If he had tumbled down a flight of fifty marble steps himself he could not have made more fuss about it. Margaret and Frances were standing with their eyes wide open, wondering what was the meaning of it, when the Admiral, seeing how puzzled they were, stepped up to them and whispered: "He's the Court Crier, you know." "Yes, I know," replied Margaret. "But what has that to do with it?" "What has that to do with it!" repeated the Admiral, astonished in his turn. "Why, everything. What do you suppose a Court Crier is for?" "I don't know," replied Margaret. "What _is_ he for?" "Why, to cry, of course, when anybody gets hurt." "What!" exclaimed Frances. "Do you mean to say that people are not allowed to cry for themselves?" The Admiral shook his head. "Never," said he. "It couldn't be allowed on any account. It is the special privilege of the Court Crier to do all the crying. The office has been held by his family for ages. He is one of the Weeping Willows, you know, as I told you."