“Dammy Darling,” whispered a broken and tear-stained voice outside Dam’s locked and keyless door the next morning, “are you dead yet?” “Nit,” was the prompt reply, “but I’m starving to death, fast.” “I am so glad,” was the sobbed answer, “for I’ve got some flat food to push under the door.” “Shove it under,” said Dam. “Good little beast!” “I didn’t know anything about the fearful fracass until tea-time,” continued Lucille, “and then I went straight to Grumper and confessed, and he sent me to bed on an empty stummick and I laid upon it, the bed I mean, and howled all night, or part of it anyhow. I howled for your sake, not for the empty stummick. I thought my howls would break or at least soften his hard heart, but I don’t think he heard them. I’m sure he didn’t, in fact, or I should not have been allowed to howl so loud and long…. Did he blame you with anger as well as injustice?” “With a stick,” was the reply. “What about that grub?” “I told him you were an innocent unborn babe and that Justice had had a mis-carriage, but he only grinned and said you had got C.B. and dry bread for insilence in the Orderly Room. What is ‘insilence’?” “Pulling Havlan’s leg, I s’pose,” opined Dam. “What about that _grub_? There comes a time when you are too hungry to eat and then you die. I—” “Here it is,” squealed Lucille, “don’t go and die after all my trouble. I’ve got some thin ice-wafer biscuits, sulphur tablets, thin cheese, a slit-up apple and three sardines. They’ll all come under the door—though the sardines may get a bit out of shape. I’ll come after lessons and suck some brandy-balls here and breathe through the key-hole to comfort you. I could blow them through the key-hole when they are small too.” “Thanks,” acknowledged Dam gratefully, “and if you could tie some up and a sausage and a tart or two and some bread-and-jam and some chicken and cake and toffee and things in a handkerchief, and climb on to the porch with Grumper’s longest fishing-rod, you might be able to relieve the besieged garrison a lot. If the silly Haddock were any good he could fire sweets up with a catapult.” “I’d try that too,” announced Lucille, “but I’d break the windows. I feel I shall never have the heart to throw a stone or anything again. My heart is broken,” and the penitent sinner groaned in deep travail of soul. “Have you eaten everything, Darling? How do you feel?” she suddenly asked. “Yes. Hungrier than ever,” was the reply. “I like sulphur tablets with sardines. Wonder when they’ll bring that beastly dry bread?” “If there’s a sulphur tablet left I could eat one myself,” said Lucille. “They are good for the inside and I have wept mine sore.” “Too late,” answered Dam. “Pinch some more.” “They were the last,” was the sad rejoinder. “They were for Rover’s coat, I think. Perhaps they will make your coat hairy, Dam. I mean your skin.” “Whiskers to-morrow,” said Dam. After a pregnant silence the young lady announced:—