the cockatoo hair and flushed face of Innocent Smith, calling to
them that they must come down as the "concert" was in full swing,
and Mr. Moses Gould was about to recite "Young Lochinvar."

As they dropped into Innocent's attic they nearly tumbled over its
entertaining impedimenta again. Inglewood, staring at the littered floor,
thought instinctively of the littered floor of a nursery.
He was therefore the more moved, and even shocked, when his eye fell
on a large well-polished American revolver.

"Hullo!" he cried, stepping back from the steely glitter as men step back
from a serpent; "are you afraid of burglars? or when and why do you deal
death out of that machine gun?"

"Oh, that!" said Smith, throwing it a single glance; "I deal life
out of that," and he went bounding down the stairs.





Chapter III

The Banner of Beacon


All next day at Beacon House there was a crazy sense that it was
everybody's birthday. It is the fashion to talk of institutions
as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in
exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention,