flump--full and fair on the top of his sleek head.

Anne shrieked with delight. "Oh Jerry, did you _hear_ him say 'Damn'?"

They rushed back to the library to tell Eliot. But Eliot couldn't see
that it was funny. He said it was a rotten thing to do.

"When he's a servant and can't do anything to _us_."

"I never thought of that," said Jerrold. (It _was_ pretty rotten.) ...
"I could ask him to bowl to me and let him get me out."

"He'd do that in any case."

"Still--I'll have _asked_ him."

But it seemed that Pinkney was in no mood to think of cricket, and they
had to be content with begging his pardon, which he gave, as he said,
"freely." Yet it struck them that he looked sadder than a booby-trap
should have made him.

It was just before bed-time that Eliot told them the awful thing.

"I suppose you know," he said, "that Pinkney's mother's dying?"

"I didn't," said Jerrold. "But I might have known. I notice that when
you're excited, _really_ excited, something awful's bound to happen....
Don't cry, Anne. It was beastly of us, but we didn't know."

"No. It's no use crying," said Eliot. "You can't do anything."