Still William Read Online Free PDF

equanimity replaced by a look that was almost wild. They were certainly coming
to the Browns’ house, William looked guiltily at the empty plates and cakestand. Except upon the carpet (for the Outlaws were not born drawing-room eaters) there was not a crumb to be
seen.
    ‘P’raps,’ said William hastily to his friends, ‘p’raps we’d better go now.’
    His friends agreed.
    They went as quietly and unostentatiously as possible by way of the back regions.
    Henri remained at the window. He watched the curious quartette as they came in at the gate.
    Details of their appearance, unnoticed before, became clear as they drew nearer. ‘Ze Crumbs an’ ze Crikey!’ ejaculated Henri.
    It was two hours later. William sat disconsolately upon the upturned plant pot throwing stones half-heartedly at the fence. Jumble sat disconsolately by him snapping
half-heartedly at flies. The Outlaws had nobly shared the sugar cakes with Jumble and he was just beginning to wish that they hadn’t . . .

    AT THE WINDOW HENRI EXCLAIMED SHRILLY, ‘OH, ZE ’OLY AUNT!’ AND THE OUTLAWS HASTILY JOINED HIM.
    Suddenly Henri’s face appeared at the top of the fence.
    ‘ ’Ello!’ he said.
    ‘ ’Ello!’ sighed William.
    ‘Zey talk to me,’ said Henri sadly, ‘ ’ow zey talk to me jus’ because I tell ’em about your leetle game.’

    FOUR PEOPLE WERE COMING DOWN THE ROAD – FOUR VERY ANGRY PEOPLE.
    ‘Yes,’ said William bitterly, ‘and ’ow they talk to me jus’ ’cause we finished up a few ole cakes and things left over from tea. You’d think to
hear ’em that they’d have been glad to come home and find me starved dead.’
    Henri leant yet further over the fence.
    ‘But zey looked . . . ’ow zey looked!’
    There was silence for a moment while the mental vision of ‘ ’ow zey looked’ came to both. Then William’s rare laugh – unmusical and penetrating – rang out.
Mrs Brown, who was suffering from a severe headache as the result of the events of the afternoon, hastily closed the drawing-room window. Followed Henri’s laugh – high-pitched and like
the neighing of a horse. Henri’s godmother tore herself with a groan from the bed on which she was indulging in a nervous breakdown and flung up her bedroom window.
    ‘Henri, are you ill?’ she cried. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Oh, ze nosings,’ replied Henri.
    Then, leaning yet more dangerously over the fence, ‘What ze game you goin’ to play tomorrow, Willem?’
    ‘Pirates,’ said William, regaining his usual calm. ‘Like to come?’
    ‘Oh, ze jolly well righto yes!’ said Henri.

 
    CHAPTER 3
THE SWEET LITTLE GIRL IN WHITE
    T he Hall stood empty most of the year, but occasionally tenants re-awoke the passing interest of the village in it. This summer it was taken by a
Mr and Mrs Bott with their daughter. Mr Bott’s name decorated most of the hoardings of his native country. On these hoardings citizens of England were urged to safeguard their digestion by
taking Bott’s Sauce with their meat. After reading Bott’s advertisements one felt convinced that any food without Bott’s Sauce was rank poison. One even felt that it would be
safer to live on Bott’s Sauce alone. On such feelings had Mr Bott – as rubicund and rotund as one of his own bottles of sauce – reared a fortune sufficient to enable him to take
the Hall for the summer without, as the saying is, turning a hair.
    William happened to be sitting on the fence by the side of the road when the motor containing Mr and Mrs Bott – both stout and overdressed – and Miss Violet Elizabeth Bott and Miss
Violet Elizabeth Bott’s nurse flashed by. William was not interested. He was at the moment engaged in whittling a stick and watching the antics of his mongrel, Jumble, as he caught and
worried each shaving. But he had a glimpse of a small child with an elaborately curled head and an elaborately flounced white dress sitting by an elaborately uniformed nurse. He gazed after the
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