Yet John would rather have gone home in a baby's bonnet than enter the church again, and the best that could be hoped was that Bertram dismayed at finding himself alone would soon emerge. Bertram, however, did not emerge, and John had a sudden fear lest in his embarrassment he might have escaped by another door and was even now rushing blindly home. Blindly was the right adverb indeed, for he would certainly be unable to see anything from under his uncle's hat. Viola, having recovered from her choking fit, began to cry at this point, and an old lady who must have noted with tender approval John's exit came out with a bottle of smelling-salts, which she begged him to make use of. Before he could decline she had gone back inside the church leaving him with the bottle. If he could have forced the contents down Viola's throat without attracting more attention he would have done so, but by this time one or two passers-by had stopped to stare at the scene, and he heard one of them tell his companion that it was a street conjurer just going to perform. "Will anything make you stop crying?" he asked his niece in despair. "I want Bertram," she wailed. And at that moment Bertram appeared, led out by two sidesmen. "Your little boy doesn't know how to behave himself in church," one of them informed John, severely. "I was only looking for my hat," Bertram explained. "I thought it had rolled into the next pew. Let go of my arm. I slipped off the hassock. I couldn't help making a little noise, Uncle John." John was grateful to Bertram for thus exonerating him publicly from the responsibility of having begotten him, and he inquired almost kindly what had happened. "The hassock slipped, and I fell into the next pew." "I'm sorry my nephew made a noise," said John to the sidesman. "My niece was taken ill, and he was left behind by accident. Thank you for showing him the way out, yes. Come along, Bertram, I've got your hat. Where's mine?" Bertram looked blankly at his uncle. "Do you mean to say--" John began, and then he saw a passing taxi to which he shouted. "Those smelling-salts belong to an old lady," he explained hurriedly and quite inadequately to the bewildered sidesman into whose hands he had thrust the bottle. "Come along," he urged the children, and when they were scrambling into the taxi he called back to the sidesmen, "You can give to the jumble sale any hat that is swept up after the service." Inside the taxi John turned to the children. "One would think you'd never been inside a church before," he said, reproachfully. "Bertram," said Viola, in bland oblivion of all that her uncle had endured, "when we dress up to-day shall we act going to church, or finish Robinson Crusoe?" "Wait till we see what we can find for dressing up," Bertram advised. John displayed a little anxiety. "Dressing up?" he repeated. "We always dress up every Sunday," the children burst forth in unison.