Children respond quickly to an appeal to the stomach. In less than five minutes, seventeen children were munching seventeen cookies, and a rousing game of “Drop the Handkerchief” had been started by a now thoroughly alert Barbara. Most of the children joined in with gusto. Mrs. Enderby picked up her palm-leaf, and tapped Gassy with it approvingly. “Now you can just keep on helping by counting thirty-nine over and over again,” she said. Game succeeded game. London Bridge fell down in weary repetition for Barbara. The players assured themselves unto seventy times seven times that “King Willyum was King George’s Son.” A trousers button had to be pressed into each child’s hand as a hiding-place. Six children at different times were hurt, and cried. Mrs. Enderby, now that the danger was over, took her chair into a corner and went to sleep behind her fan. But faithful Gassy remained at the front, singing with rare abandon and helping to lead each game. Barbara herself was so engrossed in wiping away youthful tears, and in singing, that she did not notice the gradual diminution of her forces until Gassy suddenly took her aside. “Barbara,” she said anxiously, “there are only twenty-seven kids in this room; where are the others?” Barbara counted hastily; looked up in the hay-mow; gave a wild glance into the abandoned vehicles. It was true; the Kid himself was missing. Then she crossed over to Mrs. Enderby and touched her shoulder. “Mrs. Enderby,” she said, “I am afraid you will have to take ‘King William’ with Gassy, while I look for twelve children who seem to be missing.” She flung open the door, and looked around. No children. Some odd instinct led her towards her own house. As she approached, the dining-room door facing the carriage-house suddenly opened, and a swarm of little boys issued forth. Little boys they were, but little goblins they looked to be, so impish were their faces, so bedraggled their appearance. Each boy held in one hand a milk-bottle, which he was applying to his lips in infant fashion; each blouse was bulging with rapidly disappearing cookies. Barbara’s refreshments were almost a thing of the past. As she rushed over to the group, it disintegrated, and in the centre, deserted by all his fellows in crime, stood the guilty Kid. There were no words suitable for the occasion, and therefore Barbara said nothing. Under her stern gaze, the Kid visibly shrunk. His milk-bottle dropped from his hand and splashed them both. He began to weep most violently. “Oh, I don’t like birthday parties,” he sobbed. “They didn’t bring any presents this time; I asked ’em. An’ we got tired o’ games, so we went wading in the creek an’ got all wet. An’ nen we were hungry an’ I thought you did forget the supper—”