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the terrible twins

an expression of the deepest pain: "Whatever's the matter?" he said in a tone of amazement. "I thought you loved a joke. You said you did—yesterday—at tea."

"You try it on again!" said Captain Baster.

"Now, whatever has put your back up?" said the Terror in a tone of even greater amazement. "Was it the apple-pie bed, or the lost keys, or the water in the boot, or the clothes-line across the road?"

It was well that the Terror could spring with a cat's swiftness: Captain Baster's boot missed him by a hair's breadth.

The Terror ran round the house, in at the back door and up to the bedroom of Erebus.

"Waxy?" he cried joyously. "He's black in the face! I told him he said he loved a joke."

Erebus only growled deep down in her throat. She was bitterly aggrieved that she had not had a hand in Captain Baster's downfall the night before. The Terror had awakened her to tell her joyfully of his glorious exploit and of the shuddering wel-
kin.

He paid no heed to the rumbling of her discon-

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