might be forgiven for mistaking you for the Fool of the Family!"

The grin expanded till it wellnigh circumnavigated the vast head. It
seemed first of all to make straight for the ears on either side. Then,
quite suddenly, finding these obstacles insurmountable, it dodged
underneath them, and the scared observer could almost imagine its two
ends meeting with a click somewhere in the wilderness at the back of that
unseen hemisphere of hairy thatch.

"Pinked in the white, first time--no trial shot!" cried the object in the
doorway, cheerily. "I am the Fool of the Family. But not the only one!"

At this moment something happened behind--what, I could not make out
for some time. The head abruptly disappeared. There was a noise as of
floor-rugs being vigorously beaten, the door opened, and the most
extraordinary figure was shot out into the street. The head which I had
seen certainly came first, but so lengthy a body followed that it seemed
a vain thing to expect legs in addition. Yet, finally, two appeared, each
of which would have made a decent body of itself, and went whirling
across the street till the whole monstrosity came violently into
collision with the walls of the house opposite, which seemed to rock to
its very foundations under the assault.

A decent serving-man, in a semi-doctorial livery of black cloth, with a
large white collar laid far over his shoulders, and cuffs of the same
upon his wrists, stood in the open doorway and smiled apologetically at
the visitor. He was rather red in the face and panted with his exertions.

"I ask your pardon, young sir," he said. "That fool, Jan Lubber Fiend,
will ever be at his tricks. 'Tis my young mistress that encourages him,