More William Read Online Free PDF

come! What a perfect darling of a dress, my dear. I know whose heart you’ll break in that! Oh, Mr
Thompson!’ – here William languished, bridled and ogled in a fashion seen nowhere on earth except in his imitations of his sister when engaged in conversation with one of the male sex.
If reproduced at the right moment, it was guaranteed to drive her to a frenzy: ‘I’m so glad to see you. Yes, of course I really am! I wouldn’t say it if I
wasn’t!’
    The drawing-room door opened and a chatter of conversation and a rustling of dresses arose from the hall. Oh, crumbs! They were going in to supper. Yes, the dining-room door closed; the coast
was clear. William took out the rather battered-looking delicacy from under the bed and considered it thoughtfully. The dish was big and awkwardly shaped. He must find something that would go under
his coat better than that. He couldn’t march through the hall and out of the front door, bearing a cream blancmange, naked and unashamed. And the back door through the kitchen was impossible.
With infinite care but little success as far as the shape of the blancmange was concerned, he removed it from its dish on to his soap dish. He forgot, in the excitement of the moment, to remove the
soap, but, after all, it was only a small piece. The soap dish was decidedly too small for it, but, clasped to William’s bosom inside his coat, it could be partly supported by his arm
outside. He descended the stairs cautiously. He tiptoed lightly past the dining-room door (which was slightly ajar), from which came the shrill, noisy, meaningless, conversation of the grown-ups.
He was just about to open the front door when there came the sound of a key turning in the lock.
    William’s heart sank. He had forgotten the fact that his father generally returned from his office about this time.
    William’s father came into the hall and glanced at his youngest offspring suspiciously.
    ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’
    William cleared his throat nervously.
    ‘Me?’ he questioned lightly. ‘Oh, I was jus’ – jus’ goin’ for a little walk up the road before I went to bed. That’s all I was going to do,
Father.’
    Flop! A large segment of the cream blancmange had disintegrated itself from the fast-melting mass, and, evading William’s encircling arm, had fallen on to the floor at his feet. With
praiseworthy presence of mind William promptly stepped on to it and covered it with his feet. William’s father turned round quickly from the stand where he was replacing his walking
stick.
    ‘What was that?’
    William looked round the hall absently. ‘What, Father?’
    William’s father now fastened his eyes upon William’s person.
    ‘What have you got under your coat?’
    ‘Where?’ said William with apparent surprise.
    Then, looking down at the damp excrescence of his coat, as if he noticed it for the first time, ‘Oh, that!’ with a mirthless smile. ‘Do you mean that ? Oh, that’s
jus’ – jus’ somethin’ I’m takin’ out with me, that’s all.’
    Again William’s father grunted.
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you’re going for this walk up the road why on earth don’t you go, instead of standing as if you’d lost the use of your feet?’
    William’s father was hanging up his overcoat with his back to William, and the front door was open. William wanted no second bidding. He darted out of the door and down the drive, but he
was just in time to hear the thud of a falling body and to hear a muttered curse as the Head of the House entered the dining-room feet first on a long slide of some white, glutinous substance.
    ‘Oh, crumbs!’ gasped William as he ran.
    The little girl next door was sitting in the summer house, armed with a spoon, when William arrived. His precious burden had now saturated his shirt and was striking cold and damp on his chest.
He drew it from his coat and displayed it proudly. It had certainly lost its pristine, white, rounded