"He mightn't have had an aunt," said Myra, after a minute's profound thought. "He hadn't." "Well, anyhow, one way and another you've had a very adventurous career, my lad," said Archie. "What happened the last time you played ludo?" "When I played clumps," put in Simpson, "I was the favourite spoke of Hall Caine's first bicycle. They guessed Hall Caine and the bicycle and the spoke very quickly, but nobody thought of suggesting the favourite spoke." Myra went to the window again, and came back with the news that it would probably be a fine evening. "Thank you," we all said. "But I wasn't just making conversation. I have an idea." "Silence for Myra's idea." "Well, it's this. If we can't do anything without an audience, and if the audience won't come to us, let's go to them." "Be a little more lucid, there's a dear. It isn't that we aren't trying." "Well then, let's serenade the other houses about here to-night." There was a powerful silence while everybody considered this. "Good," said Archie at last. "We will." The rest of the morning and all the afternoon were spent in preparations. Archie and Myra were all right; one plays the banjo and the other the guitar. (It is a musical family, the Mannerings.) Simpson keeps a cornet which he generally puts in his bag, but I cannot remember anyone asking him to play it. If the question has ever arisen, he has probably been asked not to play it. However, he would bring it out to-night. In any case he has a tolerable voice; while Dahlia has always sung like an angel. In short, I was the chief difficulty. "I suppose there wouldn't be time to learn the violin?" I asked. "Why didn't they teach you something when you were a boy?" wondered Myra. "They did. But my man forgot to put it in my bag when he packed. He put in two tooth-brushes and left out the triangle. Do you think there's a triangle shop in the village? I generally play on an isosceles one, any two sides of which are together greater than the third. Likewise the angles which are opposite to the adjacent sides, each to each." "Well, you must take the cap round for the money." "I will. I forgot to say that my own triangle at home, the Strad, is in the chromatic scale of A, and has a splice. It generally gets the chromatics very badly in the winter." While the others practised their songs, I practised taking the cap round, and by tea-time we all knew our parts perfectly. I had received permission to join in the choruses, and I was also to be allowed to do a little dance with Myra. When you think that I had charge of the financial arrangements as well, you can understand that I felt justified in considering myself the leader of the troupe. "In fact," I said, "you ought to black your faces so as to distinguish yourselves from me." "We won't black our faces," said Dahlia, "but we'll wear masks; and we might each carry a little board explaining why we're doing this."