"
MARGOT: "It's very wrong to bribe the police, Peter!"
PETER: "I'm not going to bribe him, governess! I'm going to give
him my Airedale terrier."
MARGOT: "What! That brute that killed the lady's lap-dog?"
PETER: "The very same!"
MARGOT: "God help poor Wood!"
Peter was so elated with this shattering escapade that a week
after--on the occasion of another row, in which I pointed out that
he was the most selfish man in the world--I heard him whistling
under my bedroom window at midnight. Afraid lest he should wake my
parents, I ran down in my dressing-gown to open the front door,
but nothing would induce the chain to move. It was a newly
acquired habit of the servants, started by Henry Hill from the
night he had barred out the police. Being a hopeless mechanic and
particularly weak in my fingers, I gave it up and went to the open
window in the library. I begged him to go away, as nothing would
induce me to forgive him, and I told him that my papa had only
just retired to bed.
Peter, unmoved, ordered me to take the flower-pots off the
window-sill, or he would knock them down and make a horrible
noise, which would wake the whole house. After I had refused to do
this, he said he would very likely break his neck when he jumped,
as clearing the pots would mean hitting his head against the
window frame. Fearing an explosion of temper, I weakly removed the
flower-pots and watched his acrobatic feat with delight.
We had not been talking on the sofa for more than five minutes
when I heard a shuffle of feet outside the library-door.
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