forfeited together."

For a moment we were silently cast down. Then I rose to the occasion
beautifully. I took the wee little man and placed him in the greenroom
doorway, leaning with his back against the door-jamb. When he saw Mr.
Daly in the distance, he simply was to turn his bright red patch
_toward_ us--we would do the rest.

It was a glorious success. We kept an eye on the picket, and when the
red patch danger signal was shown, silence fell upon the room. Forfeits
ceased for a long time. Of course we paid our watchman for his
services--paid him in pies. He had a depraved passion for bakers' pies,
which he would not cut into portions, because he said it spoiled their
flavour--he preferred working his way through them; and that small grey
face seen near the centre of a mince pie whose rim was closing gently
about his ears was a sight to make a supreme justice smile.

But our evil course was almost run: our little pie-eater, who was just a
touch odd, or what people call "queer," on Thanksgiving Day permitted
himself to be treated by so many drivers of pie wagons that at night he
was tearful and confused, and though he watched faithfully for the
coming of Mr. Daly, while we laughingly listened to a positively
criminal parody on "The Bells," watched for and saw him in ample time,
he, alas! confusedly turned his red patch the wrong way, and we, every
one, came to grief and forfeiture in consequence.

Obliging people, generous, ever ready to give a helping hand. Behind the
scenes, then, our social condition, I may say, is one of good-mannered
informality, of jollity tempered by respect and genuine good-fellowship.