Nor was the immortal day over yet. The man-eating lobster was in turn eaten by man, and after dinner Frank read to his mother and David the neglected “Atalanta,” after which they played ridiculous games till bedtime. Frank’s room and David’s communicated with each other, and, as they undressed, further details and embellishments of horror were added to the murder story, through the open door. But to one of Frank’s most gruesome inventions there had been no response, and, looking in, he saw that David was kneeling by his bed. And at that he went back to his room again. The silence was not of long duration, and in a moment David called to him. “What was that last, Frank?” he said. “It sounded jolly beastly, but I wasn’t attending.” Frank repeated it, and David squealed as he drew his bed-clothes up to his chin. “I think that’s enough,” he said. “I shall have gory nightmares. Oh, hasn’t it been a jolly day?” “Ripping. Good night, David.” “Good night. What a pity it can’t be this morning again.” Frank lay long awake that night. Before he slept he slid out of bed and followed David’s example. CHAPTER XI David, with the tip of his tongue stuck out at the corner of his mouth, was engaged in the delicate, and apparently (until you know the reason) meaningless task of lashing two pens together with a piece of cotton, so that their respective nibs should be fixed at a particular distance apart from each other. The distance, as he took pains to measure accurately, was exactly that between the first and fourth line on a piece of scribbling paper. If this is neatly done—and David with his deft fingers was doing it very neatly indeed—it will be clear that, if both pens are dipped in ink, and one writes certain words along the first line of the paper, the second pen, duly adjusted, will simultaneously be writing the same words along the fourth line. Similarly, when the first pen is engaged in the second line, the other will be engaged on the fifth. Thus, provided the pens are securely lashed and behave reasonably, a sheet of scribbling paper of the sort that holds twenty lines can be filled with hexameters from any given part of the highly over-rated adventures of the pious Æneas in the time that, without this contrivance, it would take to transcribe ten of those lines. Any boy, moreover, and such adults as still preserve a brain of moderate ingenuity, will easily guess why those pens, in David’s very superior contraption, were lashed together at a distance of three lines, for were they lashed together at the distance of one or even two lines apart, this engaging scheme by which two lines were written simultaneously would be much more easily detected. As David had to write out no fewer than five hundred lines of this piffling “Æneid,” he thus hoped to be quit of his task in the time that it would take a less ingenious devil to write two hundred and fifty.