The water was bubbling and hissing in the pipes inside, and the darkness went on. Father and uncle had not come in yet, which was a fortunate blessing. "Do be quiet!" said Noel. "Just you wait." We all sat on the stairs and waited. Noel said-- "Don't ask me yet--you'll see--you wait." And we waited, and the gas did not come back. At last Archibald tried to come out--he thought he had washed himself clean, I suppose--and of course the door was fastened. He kicked and he hammered and he shouted, and we were glad. At last Noel banged on the door and screamed through the keyhole-- "If we let you out will you let us off our promise not to tell about you and the pipes? We won't tell till you've gone back to school." He wouldn't for a long time, but at last he had to. "I shan't ever come to your beastly house again," he bellowed through the keyhole, "so I don't mind." "Turn off the gas-burners then," said Oswald, ever thoughtful, though he was still in ignorance of the beautiful truth. Then Noel sang out over the stairs, "Light up!" and Jane went round with a taper, and when the landing gas was lighted Noel turned the knob of the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face to be red with rage, or white with passion, or purple with mixed emotions, but you cannot think what our feelings were--indeed, we hardly knew what they were ourselves--when we saw that he was not red or white or purple, but _black_. He looked like an uneven sort of bluish nigger. His face and hands were all black and blue in streaks, and so were the bits of his feet that showed between his Indian dressing-gown and his Turkish slippers. [Illustration: "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG!" JANE ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY.] The word "Krikey" fell from more than one lip. "What are you staring at?" he asked. We did not answer even then, though I think it was less from keep-your-wordishness than amazement. But Jane did. "Nyang, Nyang!" she uttered tauntingly. "You thought it was soap I was giving you, and all the time it was Maple's dark bright navy-blue indelible dye--won't wash out." She flashed a looking-glass in his face, and he looked and saw the depth of his dark bright navy-blueness. Now, you may think that we shouted with laughing to see him done brown and dyed blue like this, but we did not. There was a spellbound silence. Oswald, I know, felt a quite uncomfortable feeling inside him. When Archibald had had one good look at himself he did not want any more. He ran to his room and bolted himself in. "_He_ won't go to no parties," said Jane, and she flounced downstairs. We never knew how much Noel had told her. He is very young, and not so strong as we are, and we thought it better not to ask.