"Why, yes, I suppose you can," said his mother. The others
were dumb. Oliver hunched his shoulders and kicked at
the nearest thing that had paint on it. Abby clung to
the pump handle and sobbed aloud. Lorne looked gloomily
about him and went out. Making once more for the back
fence, he encountered Alexander in the recognized family
retreat. "Oh, my goodness!" he said, and stopped. In a
very few minutes he was back in the kitchen, followed
sheepishly by Alexander, whose grimy face expressed the
hope that beat behind his little waistcoat.

"Say, you kids," he announced, "Alec's got four cents,
an' he says he'll join up. This family's going to celebrate
all right. Come on down town."

No one could say that the Murchisons were demonstrative.
They said nothing, but they got their hats. Mrs Murchison
looked up from her occupation.

"Alec," she said, "out of this house you don't go till
you've washed your face. Lorne, come here," she added in
a lower voice, producing a bunch of keys. "If you look
in the right-hand corner of the top small drawer in my
bureau you'll find about twenty cents. Say nothing about
it, and mind you don't meddle with anything else. I guess
the Queen isn't going to owe it all to you."