The Terrible Twins. Edgar Jepson
tea."
"You try it on again!" said Captain Baster.
"Now, whatever has put your back up?" said the Terror in a tone of even greater amazement. "Was it the apple-pie bed, or the lost keys, or the water in the boot, or the clothes-line across the road?"
It was well that the Terror could spring with a cat's swiftness: Captain Baster's boot missed him by a hair's breadth.
The Terror ran round the house, in at the back door and up to the bedroom of Erebus.
"Waxy?" he cried joyously. "He's black in the face! I told him he said he loved a joke."
Erebus only growled deep down in her throat. She was bitterly aggrieved that she had not had a hand in Captain Baster's downfall the night before. The Terror had awakened her to tell her joyfully of his glorious exploit and of the shuddering welkin.
He paid no heed to the rumbling of her discontent; he said: "Now, you quite understand. You'll stick to them like a leech. You won't give him any chance of talking to Mum alone. It's most important."
"I understand. But what's that? Anybody could do it," she said in a tone of extreme bitterness. "It's you that's getting all the real fun."
"But you'll be able to make yourself beastly disagreeable, if you're careful," said the Terror.
"Of course, I shall. But what's that? I tell you what it is: I'm going to have my proper share of the real fun. The first chance I get, I'm going to stone him—so there!" said Erebus fiercely.
"All right. But it doesn't seem quite the thing for a girl to do," said the Terror in a judicial tone.
"Rats!" said Erebus.
It was well that Mrs. Dangerfield kept Captain Baster waiting; it gave the purple tinge, which was heightening his floridness somewhat painfully, time to fade. When she did come to him, he was further annoyed by the fact that Erebus came too, and with a truculent air announced her intention of accompanying them. Mrs. Dangerfield was surprised; Erebus seldom showed any taste for such a gentle occupation. Also she was relieved; she did not want Captain Baster to propose before she had taken counsel with her brother.
Captain Baster started in a gloomy frame of mind; he did not try to hide from himself the fact that Mrs. Dangerfield had lost some of her charm: she was the mother of the Terror. He found, too, that his instinctive distaste for the company of Erebus was not ungrounded. She was a nuisance; she would talk about wet boots; the subject seemed to fascinate her. Then, when at last he recovered his spirits, grew once more humorous, and even rose to the proposing point, there was no getting rid of her. She was impervious to hints; she refused, somewhat pertly, to pause and gather the luscious blackberries. How could a man be his humorous self in these circumstances? He felt that his humor was growing strained, losing its delightful lightness.
Then the accident: it was entirely Erebus' own fault (he could swear it) that he tripped over her foot and pitched among those infernal brambles. Her howls of anguish were all humbug: he had not hurt her ankle (he could swear it); there was not a tear. The moment he offered, furiously, to carry her, she walked without a vestige of a limp.
Mrs. Dangerfield had no right to look vexed with him; if one brought up one's children like that—well. Certainly she was losing her charm; she was the mother of Erebus also.
His doubt, whether the mother of such children was the right kind of wife for him, had grown very serious indeed, when, as they drew near Colet House, a slim, tall young man of an extreme elegance and distinction came through the garden gate to meet them.
With a cry of "Uncle Maurice!" the crippled Erebus dashed to meet him with the light bounds of an antelope. Captain Baster could hardly believe his eyes; he knew the young man by sight, by name and by repute. It was Sir Maurice Falconer, a man he longed to boast his friend. With his aid a man might climb to the highest social peaks.
When Mrs. Dangerfield introduced him as her brother (he had never dreamed it) he could not believe his good fortune. But why had he not learned this splendid fact before? Why had he been kept in the dark? He did not reflect that he had been so continuously busy making confidences about himself, his possessions and his exploits to her that he had given her the smallest opportunities of telling him anything about herself.
But he was not one to lose a golden opportunity; he set about making up for lost time with a will; and never had he so thoroughly demonstrated his right to the name of Pallybaster. His friendliness was overwhelming. Before the end of lunch he had invited Sir Maurice to dine with him at his mess, to dine with him at two of his clubs, to shoot with him, to ride a horse of his in the forthcoming regimental steeplechases, to go with him on a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean.
All through the afternoon his friendliness grew and grew. He could not bear that any one else should have a word with Sir Maurice. The Twins were intolerable with their interruptions, their claims on their uncle's attention. They disgusted Captain Baster: when he became their stepfather, it would be his first task to see that they learned a respectful silence in the presence of their elders.
He never gave a thought to his proposal; he sought no occasion to make it. Captain Baster's love was of his life a thing apart, but his social aspirations were the chief fact of his existence. Besides, there was no haste; he knew that Mrs. Dangerfield was awaiting his avowal with a passionate eagerness; any time would do for that. But he must seize the fleeting hour and bind Sir Maurice to himself by the bond of the warmest friendship.
Again and again he wondered how Sir Maurice could give his attention to the interrupting exacting Twins, when he had a man of the world, humorous, knowing, wealthy, to talk to. He tried to make opportunities for him to escape from them; Sir Maurice missed those opportunities; he did not seem to see them. In truth Captain Baster was a little disappointed in Sir Maurice: he did not find him frankly responsive: polite—yes; indeed, politeness could go no further. But he lacked warmth. After all he had not pinned him down to the definite acceptance of a single invitation.
When, at seven o'clock, he tore himself away with the hearty assurance that he would be back at nine sharp, he was not sure that he had made a bosom friend. He felt that the friendship might need clenching.
As the front door shut behind him, Sir Maurice wiped his brow with the air of one who has paused from exhausting toil: "I feel sticky—positively sticky," he said. "Oh, Erebus, you do have gummy friends! I thought we should never get rid of him. I thought he'd stuck himself to us for the rest of our natural lives."
Mrs. Dangerfield smiled; and the Terror said in a tone of deep meaning: "That's what he's up to."
"He's not a friend of mine!" cried Erebus hotly.
"We call him the Cruncher—because of his teeth," said the Terror.
"Then beware, Erebus—beware! You are young and possibly savory," said Sir Maurice.
"You children had better go and get ready for dinner," said Mrs. Dangerfield.
The Twins went to the door. On the threshold Erebus turned and said: "It's Mum he wants to crunch up—not me."
The bolt shot, she fled through the door.
Sir Maurice looked at his sister and said softly:
"Oho! I see—heroism. That was what you wanted to consult me about." Then he laid his hand on her shoulder affectionately and added: "It won't do, Anne—it won't do at all. I am convinced of it."
"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Dangerfield in a tone in which disappointment and relief were very nicely blended.
"Think? I'm sure of it," said Sir Maurice in a tone of complete conviction.
"But the children; he could do so much for the children," pleaded Mrs. Dangerfield.
"He could, but he wouldn't. That kind of bounder never does any one any good but himself. No, no; the children are right in calling him the Cruncher. He would just crunch you up; and it is a thousand times better for them to have an uncrunched mother than all the money that ever came out of