Other troubles too there were that evening, which made all feel that even though Mr. Audley was to live to himself, his presence in the house would be no small comfort.
Fulbert, never the most manageable of the party, had procured a piece of wood from the good-natured carpenter, and was making a sparrow-trap on an improved plan, when Wilmet, impatient to have the room clear for Mr. Audley to come for the final decision--as he was to do in the evening--anxious to clear away the intolerable litter, and with more anxiety for Fulbert's holiday task than for the sparrows, ordered him to bed--ten minutes too early, and in too peremptory a tone.
'Fulbert, I say, clear up that litter, and go to bed.'
'Don't you hear, Fulbert?' said Felix, looking up from his book.
Fulbert gave a pull to the newspaper that was spread under his works on the table, and sent all his chips and saw-dust on the ground.
'O Fulbert! how naughty!' broke out Alda.
'Fulbert, are you going to mind?' asked Wilmet. 'Please remember.'
'I shall go in proper time,' growled Fulbert.
'That is not the way to speak to your sister,' interposed Felix, with authority.
Felix rose up from his chair, full of wrath and indignation. There was quite difference enough in their size and strength to give him the complete mastery, for Fulbert was only ten years old; but Wilmet, dreading nothing so much as a scuffle and outcry, sprang up, imploring, 'O Felix! remember, Mamma is wide awake to-night. Let him alone--pray, let him alone.'
Felix was thoroughly angry, and kept his hands off with exceeding difficulty. 'Little sneak,' he said; 'he chooses to take advantage.'
'He always was a sneak; his nose is the shape of it,' said Edgar.
As Felix and Wilmet had the sense to let this amiable observation drop, Edgar contented himself with making some physiognomical outlines of sneaks' noses on a slate; and silence prevailed till the church clock struck the half-hour, when Clement got up, and taking the slate, where he had been solacing himself with imitating Edgar's caricatures, he was about to make it an impromptu dust-pan, and went down on his knees to sweep up Fulbert's malicious litter, but was rewarded with a vicious kick on the cheek. It was under the table, out of sight; and Clement, like a true son of his mother, made no sign, but went off to bed like a Spartan.