You see, my father didn't know what had been happening down below. He couldn't see, for one thing. The jut of the porch hid my warlike array and bold defence. So he couldn't understand who the--umph--was down there. To make out he came forward and leaned over the stone cornice at the end of the railings, with Elsie on one side of him and Harriet Caw on the other. I stood up as noble as the boy on the burning deck or Fitz-James, when he said-- "Come one, come all, this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I!" Or, at any rate, something like that. But _my_ feet were really on my native doorstep, while as for Fitz-James--my father says that, whether the rock flew or not, he had no title to it that could stand the least sniff of law. Before my father spoke to me, both Elsie and Harriet Caw thought that I looked "just too heroic." This I heard on good authority, and it pleased me, for that was the exact effect I was trying to produce. Elsie was such a brick as to swear that she thought so even after, and to this day she sticks to it. Girls have some good points. But it was awful enough at the time. "Joe," shouted my father, and I could see his face red and threatening above me, with the effort of leaning so far over, "if you do not put up that popgun and come in the house directly, I will come out with a cane and thrash you within an inch of your life!" He even went on to give particulars, which I think was mean of him in the circumstances. But no fellow can argue with his father--at least, not with one like mine--so I stepped round to the door. My father met me, took the revolver away from me, and made as if he would box my ears. Last of all, he told me to go into the back kitchen and wash my face--and ears. I could have forgiven him all but that word. Then Harriet Caw giggled, and said she would come and see that I did it. But just then the tide turned. For, hearing Harriet say this, Elsie came along, too, and though I was, indeed, pretty grimy with racing and scratching along after these Bewick pit fellows, she took my hands, right under the nose of Harriet Caw, and said, "Joe, I thank you for saving my life!" Then, loosing one of my hands, she put her palm on my shoulder, and stooped and kissed me on the forehead, ever so stately and noble, like another of those _Graphic_ pictures. But evidently Harriet Caw did not think so, for she only sniffed and, turning on her patent india-rubber heels (which she had bought to imitate Elsie), she went right upstairs. So it was Elsie who helped me to wash away the smoke of battle. That wasn't so altogether bad. You should have seen her eyes, all you other fellows, when I undid the yellow leather belt from about my war-worn waist, and gave her the pouch of cartridges to put away. "Are they Dum-Dum?" she said reverently. And I said they were.