Both were
supplied with iron foot-warmers. There was a fearful fog; and
the train was going at a TREMENDOUS pace.
So was the other train. They approached, they banged, they smashed
to atoms. It was the most appalling collision that had ever been heard
of, and the Guard and Engine-Driver, as well as the Ticket-Collectors
and Directors of the Company, were all executed by the Government the
very next day from gallows that an angry London built in half an hour
on the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral dome.
It took place between the footstool and the fireplace in the
thickest fog that England had ever known. And the horrid black heart
of Mr. Jinks was discovered beneath the wreckage of a special carriage
next to the luggage van. It was simply black as coal and very nasty
indeed. The little boy who found it was a porter’s son, whose mother
was so poor that she took in washing for members of Parliament, who
paid their bills irregularly because they were very busy governing
Ireland. He knew it was a cinder, but did not discover it was a heart
until he showed it to his mother, and his mother said it was far too
black to wash.
The accident to Mr. Jinks, therefore, was a complete success. The
butler helped with the mending of the engine, and Maria informed at
least one Authority, “We do not know Mr. Jinks. We have other
friends.”
“But, remember,” said Judy, “we mustn’t mention it to Daddy,
because Mr. Jinks is his partner-in-the-offiss.”
“Was,” said Tim. The remains they decided to send to what
they called the “Hospital for Parilysed Ineebrits with Incurable
Afflictions of the Heart.”
But the children were not always so vindictive and blood-thirsty.
All three could be very tender sometimes. Even Maria was not wholly
implacable and merciless, she had a pretty side as well. Their
neighbour at the Manor House, Colonel William Stumper, C.B.,
experienced this gentler quality in the trio. He was Mother’s cousin,
too.
They were inclined to like this Colonel Stumper, C.B. For one thing
he limped, and that meant, they decided, that he had a wooden leg.
They never called it such, of course, but indicated obliquely that the
injured limb was made of oak or walnut, by referring to the other as
“his living leg,” “his good leg,” and so forth. For another thing, he
did not smile at them; and for a third, he did not ask foolish
questions in an up-and-down voice (assumed for the moment), as though
they were invalids, idiots, or tailless puppies who could not answer.
He frowned at them. He said furiously, “How are you, creatures?” And—
he gave usually at least a shilling to each.
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