"If those young brutes have been playing practical jokes on you, _carissima_, just let me know and I'll give them a lesson they won't forget." "Will you, you stinking pig?" muttered Ethelred, bending over and releasing a heavy weight on his brother's head. "Heavens! What have you done?" Jasmine cried in apprehension. "It's all right. It's only a bag of flour," Ethelred explained. "And I think it hit him absolutely plum." However it hit Edward, it had the effect of rousing him to fury; without pausing to consider that the steps of the ladder were broken and that the floor of the tower contained several holes and that his sense of direction was considerably impeded by the flour in his eyes, he came charging up the ladder. Just as he reached the top there was a crack of giving wood, followed by a crash, a cry, a thud, and several groans. "Great Scott! He's really damaged himself this time," said Vibart. "I say, I didn't work that," Ethelred protested a little tremulously. Edred and Edwy, who had followed in their brother's wake, were calling up that he had broken his leg. Vibart's cigar-lighter refused to shed even a momentary flicker on the scene, and there was nothing for it but to send one of the boys below back to the house for help. Jasmine begged Harry Vibart to escape if he could, but when he tried the floor with a view to letting himself down, the rotten planking began to break off, so that he had to draw back lest the whole floor of the room should collapse and precipitate himself and Jasmine upon the prostrate and groaning form of Edward underneath. He then attempted in response to Jasmine's entreaties to escape from the oriel window, but no sooner had he put himself into a position to make the drop than she begged him with equal urgency to come back. "You might break your leg too, and it would be so dreadfully embarrassing to have you and Edward both in bed. My aunt would hate looking after you, and I should never be allowed to look after you." "Are you sure of that?" he asked. "Sure, sure. But why do you ask?" "Because, if I thought there was a chance of getting you as my nurse, I'd break every bone in my body with the greatest pleasure."