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“I don’t care how many I do, if only I can,” said Bobby, drawing his willing arm across his steaming forehead. “I should like to have a fiery tail.”

“You can’t devour yourself once–let alone twelve times,” said I sternly. “Don’t be silly, Bob.”

It was not Bob I was impatient with in reality, it was Philip.

“If you really mean to desert the theatricals after all you promised, I would much rather try to do without you,” said I indignantly.

“Then you may!” retorted Philip. “I wash my hands of it and of the whole lot of you, and of every nursery entertainment henceforward!” and he got the fragments of his gun together with much clatter. But Charles had posted himself by the door to say his say, and to be ready to escape when he had said it.

“You’re ashamed of it, that’s it,” said he; “you want to sit among the grown-ups with a spy-glass, now you’ve got Apothecary Clinton’s son for a friend,”–and after this brief and insulting summary of the facts, Charles vanished. But Philip, white with anger, was too quick for him, and at the top of the back-stairs he dealt him such a heavy blow that Charles fell head-long down the first flight.

Alice and I flew to the rescue. I lived in dread of Philip really injuring Charles some day, for his blows were becoming serious ones as he grew taller and stronger, and his self-control did not seem to wax in proportion. And Charles’s temper was becoming very aggressive. On this occasion, as soon as he had regained breath, and we found that no bones were broken, it was only by main force that we held him back from pursuing Philip.

“I’ll hit him–I’ll stick to him,” he sobbed in his fury, shaking his head like a terrier, and doubling his fists. But he was rather sick with the fall, and we made him lie down to recover himself, whilst Alice, Bobby, and I laid our heads together to plan a substitute for Philip in the Dragon.

When bed-time came, and Philip was still absent, we became uneasy, and as I lay sleepless that night I asked myself if I had been to blame for the sulks in which he had gone off. In fits of passion Philip had often threatened to go away and never let us hear of him again. I knew that such things did happen, and it made me unhappy when he went off like this, although his threats had hitherto been no more than a common and rather unfair device of ill-temper.

CHAPTER VIII.

I HEAR FROM PHILIP–A NEW PART WANTED–I LOSE MY TEMPER–WE ALL LOSE OUR TEMPERS.

Next morning’s post brought the following letter from Philip:–

“MY DEAR ISOBEL,

“You need not bother about the Dragon–I’ll do it. But I wish you would put another character into the piece. It is for Clinton. He says he will act with us. He says he can do anything if it is a leading part. He has got black velvet knickerbockers and scarlet stockings, and he can have the tunic and cloak I wore last year, and the flap hat; and you must lend him your white ostrich feather. Make him some kind of a grandee. If you can’t, he must be the Prince, and Charles can do some of the Travellers. We are going out on the marsh this morning, but I shall be with you after luncheon, and Clinton in the evening. He does not want any rehearsing, only a copy of the plan. Let Alice make it, her writing is the clearest, and I wish she would make me a new one; I’ve torn mine, and it is so dirty, I shall never be able to read it inside the Dragon. Don’t forget.

“Your affectionate brother,

“PHILIP.”

There are limits to one’s patience, and with some of us they are not very wide. Philip had passed the bounds of mine, and my natural indignation was heightened by a sort of revulsion from last night’s anxiety on his account. His lordly indifference to other people’s feelings was more irritating than the trouble he gave us by changing his mind.