Young Phillip Maddison Read Online Free PDF

brow above your eyes and you hear charming voices and see a well-lighted hall and a dining room door open, and smell a roasting chicken—a house where they have dinner at night, and not just cold mutton for supper—it is like seeing into an enchanted palace until with a growl and a pattering of slipping claws on oil-cloth a bulldog rushes at your eyes behind the open letter-box and you turn tail and run away in alarm into the fog, knowing that if you are not quick the thick fat spring on the gate will send it back with a clash and catch the back of your heel.
    A dark figure loomed; the boy’s arm, Valentine in hand, was caught and held.
    “What were you doing there?”
    “Nothing, sir.”
    It was Mr. Pye, who lived next door to the Rolls. The houses were attached; and Mr. Pye’s, the lower, had steps up to his front door. The steps were always well hearth-stoned.
    “Who is it, Phillip?”
    “Yes, Mr. Pye.”
    Mr. Pye’s voice spoke quietly. “Why were you spying through the letter-box? It’s not exactly the thing to do, is it? It is not a pleasant role, that of a peeping Tom, Phillip, to add to that of a boy who has his battles fought for him by someone else, I have noticed, let me tell you!”
    Phillip could not speak.
    The worst happened. The door opened. Mr. Rolls stood there, the light behind him.
    “Hullo!” his rich and easy voice said. “Oh, it’s you, Pye. I wondered what was happening, with Mike skidding about all over the place.”
    “Oh, we just happened to meet,” replied Mr. Pye, in the same easy voice, but more level, not so rich as Mr. Rolls’. “Our young friend and I happened to meet outside your gate, in fact we bumped into each other. It’s Phillip Maddison.”
    “Oh, Phillip, how are you,” said Mr. Rolls. “Not hurt, I hope? It certainly is a dark night. Well, I must not keep you. Goodnight, Pye! Good night, Phillip.”
    Mr. Pye raised his big grey felt hat—a cigar hat Phillip hadthought of it ever since he had seen a poster of a brown-faced jovial man on an ocean liner by the rails in such a hat, a globe-trotter smoking a cigar, the wind on his cloak. Mr. Pye sometimes wore such a cloak on the Hill when walking with his wife, who was deaf, and his children. The tweed cloak had an extra cape over the shoulders to shoot off the rain.
    Phillip raised a cap that was not there. The door of Turret House closed.
    “Well, young man,” said Mr. Pye, shortly, in a low voice, “I will bid you goodnight. And take my advice, don’t go spying on other people in their houses again. The next time you may not escape so easily.”
    “No, sir.”
    When Phillip got back, almost breathless with joy because the great Mr. Rolls had spoken so nicely to him, Polly was there to open the door for him. He told her the amazing adventure. The Valentine was still in his jacket pocket.
    “You know, Polly,” he concluded his whispered story in the dim secrecy of the front room, “the funny thing is, I swear Old Pye had an envelope in his hand, and had come to put it in the letter-box! Only he didn’t! Now, if he had come to deliver a note, why didn’t he give it to Mr. Rolls? That’s what puzzles me. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? Oh, I never liked Old Pye. He’s so fat, almost oily.” Phillip thought a moment, then burst out, “Do you think he was going to slip in a Valentine, too? Do old men send them?”
    “I think some do, Phil. To their old sweethearts. Perhaps it was to Mrs. Rolls, she is very pretty, isn’t she?”
    “Him!” exclaimed Phillip, with disgust. “What—to Mrs. Rolls! Why, Pye’s a fat old slug! Not likely!”
    “What are you going to do with yours?” asked Polly. “Go back later?”
    “No jolly fear! I’ve had one narrow escape! Oh damn, now I’ve got the book to take back. Oh Lord, if I get out of this, I’ll never have another book out, I swear it!”
    “Shall I come, Phil? Aunty might let me, if you ask her.”
    “No, thanks. I must tackle this alone. The