"You must be glad to be back," Runcie said, "and to sleep in nice beds once more."

"Oh, Runcie," said Hester, "you don't really understand anything."

"I understand what King Edward's head is like on a shilling," said Runcie, with a little twinkle at Janet.

Janet blushed.

"What a shame," she said, "to tell that story! Hester, I suppose that was you, in one of your letters."

"Yes," said Hester; "but, Janet darling, you told me always to tell all the news."



CHAPTER 23

THE MOST SURPRISING ADVENTURE OF ALL

The children had been back two or three days, and Kink was still on the road, when one morning a telegram came from him saying that he had reached Hounslow, and Robert asked if they might all walk out to meet him, and so return home triumphantly in a body. Mrs. Avory agreed, and they trooped off, after the briefest lunch, taking Horace Campbell and the Rotherams with them.

They had been gone two or three hours, and Mrs. Avory was sitting talking with Runcie, when Eliza Pollard brought a card on the brass tray that Janet had repoussed for her mother's last Christmas present. It ran:

MR. HENRY AMORY The Red House, Chiswick, W.

"I don't know him," said Mrs. Avory. "What is he like?"

"Well, mum," said Eliza Pollard, "he's a short gentleman with a red face and two boys, and he seems very angry."

"Ask him what he wants to see me about," said Mrs. Avory.

"I did," said Eliza Pollard, "and he said he could not tell me, but the matter was of the highest importance."

Mrs. Avory took the card and descended to the drawing-room, where the visitors were waiting for her.

Mr. Amory bowed. "Pardon me, madam," he said, "but I have come to know what you have done with my caravan."

"Your caravan!"

"Yes, madam, my caravan. A caravan was sent as a present to my sons some three weeks or a month ago, and your family, I am creditably informed, seized and detained it."

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Avory, "but we did nothing of the sort. A caravan was sent here for my children as a present, and we have simply made use of it. They have been away in it for a fortnight. It returns to-day!"

"Ha!" said Mr. Amory. "Perhaps you will have the goodness to inform me who gave it to you?"

"That," said Mrs. Avory, "I can't do—"

"Ha!" said Mr. Amory.

"—because," Mrs. Avory continued, "I don't know. We have never discovered. The giver wished to be anonymous."

Mr. Amory looked surprised, and became a shade less fierce.

"You took no steps to find out?" he asked.

"How could I? There was no clue to go upon."

"I see, I see," said Mr. Amory. "There has been a huge mistake. Perhaps you will allow me to read you a letter which we received a day or so ago:

"'DEAR CHILDREN,

"'I have just come back, much sooner than I expected; but, finding no letter from you, I have made some inquiries as to what you have done with the caravan, and, to my amazement, cannot discover that it has ever reached you at all; and since, if it has not, this letter must be all Greek to you, I may now say that on the 23rd of June a caravan fully furnished for a journey should have arrived at your house with a letter saying it was from your friend X., as it amused me to call myself. I have been to the man whom I employed to take it to you, but he is in hospital. His wife, however, is convinced that he did take it to Chiswick all right. Please ask your father to try to discover to what house it was sent. Tomorrow evening I shall come to see you all.

"'Your affectionate UNCLE EUSTACE.

"There," said Mr. Amory, "you see. Not, however, that I should have let my sons go away in it—at any rate, without me"—the two little boys winced—"but different people have different ideas. Well," he continued, "I have been investigating, and of course I soon discovered that the caravan had come here, and that your children had gone off in it. I will admit that we have only just come to Chiswick, and that you were better known here; but the fact remains that the letter was addressed, not to the name of Avory, but Amory."

Mrs. Avory was bewildered. "It is all very unexpected," she said. "I really cannot remember reading the address on the envelope at all. It was handed to me as mine, and I opened it. It may have been Amory. If you care to see the letter, I have it."

"Please," said Mr. Amory; and Mrs. Avory went to her desk.

"Now, boys, listen to me," said Mr. Amory to his two sons. "Let this be a lesson to you. Never give anonymous presents. It is foolish, and it leads to trouble; and very likely the wrong person will be thanked."

Mrs. Avory handed him the letter, and he read it.

"Quite clear," he said, "but not what I call a sensible way of doing things. Your explanation satisfies me."

Mrs. Avory expressed her regret that the mistake had occurred. "But," she added, "you must allow that we had no other course than to accept the present as though it really belonged to us. We have for so many years been the only Avories here."

"But have you so many friends," Mr. Amory inquired, "who would be likely to give you anonymously so handsome a gift? It did not strike you as strange?"

"Certainly not," said Mrs. Avory.

Mr. Amory again said "Ha!"

"The caravan," Mrs. Avory resumed, rising to her feet, "shall be put in order directly it returns, and sent to your address. Anything that has been taken from it or broken shall be replaced. I can say no more than that. Good afternoon."

It was not, however, the end of the visit, for at that instant the sound of heavy wheels was heard, and cheers in the street, and, looking out of the window, Mrs. Avory saw that the Slowcoach had already arrived, escorted (as it had left) by all the children of Chiswick, and a moment later Janet burst into the room, crying, "Mother, do come and see!"

She pulled up stiff on observing the strangers.

"Janet, dear," said Mrs. Avory, "there has been a serious mistake. The Slowcoach is not ours at all. It belongs to this gentleman's children."

Janet gasped. "But it was sent to us," she said at last.

"No," said Mr. Amory; "I beg your pardon, young lady, but it was sent to us. It came to you in error."

Janet looked questioningly at her mother, and Mrs. Avory nodded yes. Hester and Gregory now entered the room to insist on their mother either coming out or giving leave for some of the street children to be allowed to go inside the caravan. But Mr. Amory interposed. "No," he said. "I prefer not. They are rarely clean."

Gregory looked at him in dismay.

"Mother!" he exclaimed.

"Janet," whispered Mrs. Avory, who knew her youngest son, "take Gregory away, and keep him out of sight till they go."

"But we," Mr. Amory resumed, "will examine the caravan. I suppose there was no inventory."

"No," said Mrs. Avory.

"Very unfortunate," he muttered, "and very unsystematic. However, we must hope for the best;" and so saying he led the way toward the yard, with his meek little sons, who had said not a word, but appeared to wish themselves well out of the affair, behind him.

Kink had already unharnessed Moses, and the Slowcoach stood at rest. Mr. Amory first went to examine a place on the wheel where a gate-post had removed some of the paint, and he then put a foot on the step; but Diogenes sprang up and growled so seriously that he withdrew.

"Please remove the dog," he said.

While this was being done, and the father and his two sons were inside, Janet explained the situation to the others. They refused at first to believe it.

"Do you mean to say," Robert exclaimed, "that the Slowcoach isn't ours at all?"

"Yes," said Janet.

"It belongs to those measly pip-squeaks?" said Robert.

"Yes," said Janet.

Robert held his head in a kind of stupor.



CHAPTER 24

THE END

They had a very solemn tea. Everyone was depressed and mortified.

"We couldn't help it, could we, mother?" Janet said several times.

"Of course not," said Mrs. Avory. "It's no one's fault except the foolish man who brought the caravan here. What has Kink said about it?" But as no one had asked him, he was called to the cedar-tree, beneath which tea was laid on fine days.

"Here's a go, mum," he said.

"What did the man say who brought the caravan?" Mrs. Avory said.

"As near as I can remember he showed me the letter, and said, 'Is that all right?' I looked at it, and read, 'To be given to Mrs. Avory' on it, so I said, 'Yes,' Then he said, 'I've got a caravan for your lot, cockie,' and backed it into the yard."

"How splendid!" said Robert. "Then it was you who did it, Kinky?"

"Did what, Master Robert?"

"Got us the Slowcoach; because the address wasn't Mrs. Avory at all; it was Mrs. Amory."

"Oh, I don't take much count about m's or v's," said Kink. "It began with a big 'A,' and it ended in 'ory,' and that was good enough for me."

"Kink," said Janet, "you're a dear. You've given us the most beautiful holiday."

Hester suddenly turned pale. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "what about the twenty-five sovereigns?"

"Yes," said Robert, "that's awful!"

"It is rather bad," said Mrs. Avory, "because, of course, it will have to be given back, and at once too, and I'm not at all rich just now. I'm not even sure that we have any right to go to Sea View, and the twenty-five pounds will just spoil everything."

"Why should we give it back?" said Gregory.

"Because it's not ours," said Mrs. Avory. "There's no question at all."

"I think Kinky ought to pay it," said Gregory. "He's got heaps of money in the Post-Office, and it's his fault, too."

"The best thing to do," said Mrs. Avory, "is to telephone to Uncle Christopher and tell him all about it, and ask him to come over to-night and give us his advice. He always knows best."

"And Mr. Scott and Mr. Lenox, too," said Robert.

"Very well," said Mrs. Avory. "They were all here at the beginning, and they had better be here at the end."

Mr. Lenox, who came first, was immensely tickled. "Who stole the caravan?" he asked at intervals through the evening.

Mr. Scott took it more practically. "We must have another," he said, "and have it built to our own design. Let the Slowcoach provide the ground-plan, so to speak, and then improve on it by the light of your experience. You must by this time each know of certain little defects in the Slowcoach that could easily be done away with."

"Of course," said Robert. "Blisters."

"Don't rot," said Gregory. "I know of something, Mr. Scott. The roof. It ought to have a felt covering, so as to soften the rain."

"Exactly," said Mr. Scott. "And you, Janet?"

"I used to wonder," said Janet, "if there could not be some poles, such as those that you raise carriage-wheels with when you wash them, to lift the caravan above its springs at night. As it is, every movement makes it shake or rock. They could be carried underneath quite easily."

"Very good," said Mr. Scott. "And you,

"I heard about a caravan yesterday," said Mary, "that had two little swings at the back for small children when they were tired."

"That's a good idea," said Mr. Lenox. "For Gregory, for instance."

"I'm not a small child," said Gregory, "and I don't get tired."

"Oh," said Janet, "what about those times when you said you couldn't walk at all?"

"Shut up," said Gregory.

"Very well, then," said Mr. Scott; "if you really are still keen on caravaning, I'll give you a new one, with proper title-deeds, in case any new Mr. Amory turns up, and we will all superintend its building."

"Hurrah!" cried the children.

"And we'll call it Slowcoach the Second." It was at this point that Uncle Christopher came in.

"This is very sad," he said. "To think of my nephews and nieces running off with another person's caravan!"

"But what shall we do?" Mrs. Avory asked.

"There's nothing to do," said Uncle Christopher, "but to have it cleaned up and put in order as soon as possible, and sent round to its real owner."

"The dreadful thing," said Janet, "is the twenty-five pounds."

"Yes, I know," said Uncle Christopher; "but I believe there's a way out of even that difficulty. I told your aunt all about it when I got back from the office, and she wished me to tell you that she would like to refund the twenty-five pounds herself."

There was a long pause.

"O dear," said Janet at last, as she hid her face in her mother's arms, "everybody is much too kind."

THE END