You learn, later in the day, that the explanation of the proceeding is
that you, unable to sleep, woke up early in the morning, and thought you
would like a game of cricket. The children, taught to be ever courteous
to guests, felt it their duty to humour you. Mrs. Harris remarks at
breakfast that at least you might have seen to it that the children were
properly dressed before you took them out; while Harris points out to
you, pathetically, how, by your one morning's example and encouragement,
you have undone his labour of months.

On this Wednesday morning, George, it seems, clamoured to get up at a
quarter-past five, and persuaded them to let him teach them cycling
tricks round the cucumber frames on Harris's new wheel. Even Mrs.
Harris, however, did not blame George on this occasion; she felt
intuitively the idea could not have been entirely his.

It is not that the Harris children have the faintest notion of avoiding
blame at the expense of a friend and comrade. One and all they are
honesty itself in accepting responsibility for their own misdeeds. It
simply is, that is how the thing presents itself to their understanding.
When you explain to them that you had no original intention of getting up
at five o'clock in the morning to play cricket on the croquet lawn, or to
mimic the history of the early Church by shooting with a cross-bow at
dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to your own
initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian
fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly
apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance,
waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George at a
little before five was due to natural instinct on his part, or to the
accidental passing of a home-made boomerang through his bedroom window,