sideboard--"tons of pears an'--an' green stuff to put on the walls,
and they give three-halfpence to the poor heathen! Huh!"

He opened the door and heard his sister's voice from the library.
"He's probably in mischief somewhere. He'll be a perfect nuisance all
the evening. Mother, couldn't you make him go to bed an hour earlier?"

William had no doubt as to the subject of the conversation. _Make him
go to bed early!_ He'd like to see them! He'd just like to see them!
And he'd show them, anyway. Yes, he would show them. Exactly what he
would show them and how he would show them, he was not as yet very
clear. He looked round the room again. There were no eatables in it so
far except the piled-up plate of huge pears on the sideboard.

He looked at it longingly. They'd probably counted them and knew just
how many there ought to be. Mean sort of thing they would do. And
they'd be in counting them every other minute just to see if he'd
taken one. Well, he was going to score off somebody, somehow. Make him
go to bed early indeed! He stood with knit brows, deep in thought,
then his face cleared and he smiled. He'd got it! For the next five
minutes he munched the delicious pears, but, at the end, the piled-up
pyramid was apparently exactly as he found it, not a pear gone,
only--on the inner side of each pear, the side that didn't show, was a
huge semicircular bite. William wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve.
They were jolly good pears. And a blissful vision came to him of the
faces of the guests as they took the pears, of the faces of his
father and mother and Robert and Ethel. Oh, crumbs! He chuckled to
himself as he went down to the kitchen again.

"I say, cook, could you make a small one--quite a small one--for