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He pushed in, and this was the sight that met his eyes.

The kitchen in its primeval condition of chaos, the untidy particulars of which were the less apparent, as everything was more or less obscured by the clouds of dust, where Johnnie reigned triumphant, like a witch with her broomstick; and, to crown all, Tommy capering and singing in the Brownie’s bottle-green suit, brass buttons and all.

“What’s this?” shouted the astonished Tailor, when he could find breath to speak.

“It’s the Brownies,” sang the boys; and on they danced, for they had worked themselves up into a state of excitement from which it was not easy to settle down.

“Where is Brownie?” shouted the father.

“He’s here,” said Tommy; “we are the Brownies.”

“Can’t you stop that fooling?” cried the Tailor, angrily. “This is past a joke. Where is the real Brownie, I say?”

“We are the only Brownies, really, Father,” said Tommy, coming to a full stop, and feeling strongly tempted to run down from laughing to crying. “Ask the Old Owl. It’s true, really.”

The Tailor saw the boy was in earnest, and passed his hand over his forehead.

“I suppose I’m getting old,” he said; “I can’t see daylight through this. If you are the Brownie, who has been tidying the kitchen lately?”

“We have,” said they.

“But who found my measure?”

“I did,” said Johnnie.

“And who sorts your grandmother’s scraps?”

“We do,” said they.

“And who sets breakfast, and puts my things in order?”

“We do,” said they.

“But when do you do it?” asked the Tailor.

“Before you come down,” said they.

“But I always have to call you,” said the Tailor.

“We get back to bed again,” said the boys.

“But how was it you never did it before?” asked the Tailor doubtfully.

“We were idle, we were idle,” said Tommy.

The Tailor’s voice rose to a pitch of desperation–

“But if you did the work,” he shouted, “where is the Brownie?”

“Here!” cried the boys, “and we are very sorry that we were Boggarts so long.”

With which the father and sons fell into each other’s arms and fairly wept.

* * * * *

It will be believed that to explain all this to the Grandmother was not the work of a moment. She understood it all at last, however, and the Tailor could not restrain a little good-humoured triumph on the subject. Before he went to work he settled her down in the window with her knitting, and kissed her.

“What do you think of it all, Mother?” he inquired.

“Bairns are a blessing,” said the old lady tartly, “I told you so.”

* * * * *

“That’s not the end, is it?” asked one of the boys in a tone of dismay, for the Doctor had paused here.

“Yes, it is,” said he.

“But couldn’t you make a little more end?” asked Deordie, “to tell us what became of them all?”

“I don’t see what there is to tell,” said the Doctor.

“Why, there’s whether they ever saw the Old Owl again, and whether Tommy and Johnnie went on being Brownies,” said the children.

The Doctor laughed.

“Well, be quiet for five minutes,” he said.

“We’ll be as quiet as mice,” said the children.

And as quiet as mice they were. Very like mice, indeed. Very like mice behind a wainscot at night, when you have just thrown something to frighten them away. Death-like stillness for a few seconds, and then all the rustling and scuffling you please. So the children sat holding their breath for a moment or two, and then shuffling feet and smothered bursts of laughter testified to their impatience, and to the difficulty of understanding the process of story-making as displayed by the Doctor, who sat pulling his beard, and staring at his boots, as he made up “a little more end.”