William's Treasure Trove by Richmal Crompton

Author:Richmal Crompton [Crompton, Richmal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Newnes
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Oh, yes,” said William nonchalantly. “Yes, we’re all lion tamers in my fam’ly. My father’s a lion tamer an’ my mother’s a lion tamer an’ my brother’s a lion tamer an’ my sister’s a lion tamer. I tame the small ones but they can be jolly fierce sometimes. An’ we don’t only tame lions. We ride wild horses an’ put the elephants through their tricks an’ teach the seals an’ monkeys an’ we walk tight-ropes an’ do trapezes.”

For suddenly it had all become real to William. He saw his father as ring master, moustachioed and top- hatted, cracking his whip in the middle of the arena, saw his mother seated with careless elegance on the back of an elephant, saw Ethel riding bareback in a short frilled skirt jumping through hoops, saw Robert shining in bespangled tights, swinging gracefully on a trapeze. The drab picture of reality—Mr. Brown reading his evening paper, Mrs. Brown peeling potatoes at the sink, Robert tinkering with his motor bike, Ethel knitting a jumper—faded away altogether.

“I was born in a circus,” he added. “It was my father’s circus, too.”

So earnest was his gaze, so set and ferocious his expression, that for a fleeting—a very fleeting—moment Mr. Limpsfield almost believed him. Then he gave a short unpleasant laugh and turned his expansive smile on Aaron.

“I think you’d better come home with me, my friend,” he said.

William looked round for escape. Just behind him was a gate leading into a small back garden.

“Gosh no!” he said indignantly. “He’s fixed up to come to tea with me.” He turned to Aaron. “Here we are. Come on.”

Opening the gate with a careless swagger of ownership, he walked up to the back door, followed by the old man.

There he turned and looked back. Mr. Limpsfield still stood at the gate watching them. Intensifying the careless swagger of ownership, William opened the back door and entered a small neat kitchen. Aaron followed him. William closed the door.

“Lucky we were just at your house!” said Aaron, drawing a sigh of relief.

“Well, it’s not axshully my house,” said William. He looked cautiously into the hall. The assegais and mounted heads of Sable Bull and Koodoo on the walls, the lion skin rug, the hatstand with antlers for hooks and the umbrella stand cunningly devised from a rhinoceros’ foot, told him that he had entered the back door of General Moult’s house. “But I know whose it is.” He glanced at the clock on the kitchen chimney-piece. “An’ it’s all right. He goes for a walk from half past two till half past three every afternoon, so we’ll have gone by the time he gets back.”

Aaron peeped out from behind the blue-and-white check curtains.

“Old Nosey’s still standing there watching,” he said. “He thinks there’s somethin’ fishy about it.”

“Tell you what!” said William. “We’ll go upstairs. If he sees us upstairs he’ll think it’s my house all right an’ he’ll go away.”

They went into the hall, past the open door of the General’s study. Spread

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