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Show 14 PRINCESS MARY‘S GIFT BOOK TIIE SPY Inust have a couple to stand on guard while the working parties are gomg on. I talked to the vicar, Hankly. and the (‘olonel about this. I did not see how we could possibly provide Mrs. Miniins with lloy Scouts. for there were none in the parish. The vicar said he was sori'v that he had not started the organisation long ago. but supposed it was too late to do so now. To my surprise the Colonel. who up to that time had been getting angrier and angrier with Mrs. Mimnis, took her side and said that it' she wanted Boy Scouts she ought to have them. He proposed that we should enrol four choir boys at once. and offered to buy uniforms for them himself. The vicariwas a little doubtl'nl, but Hankly and I backed up the Colonel. "'0 were very tired of the constant committee meetings, and we hoped that if Mrs. Mimms got really interested in Boy Scouts she might let us alone. \Ve acted promptly. and in a week had four boys readv to stand on guard at the doors of the Manor House. . . The Colonel gave them a talking to at their first parade. IIe impressed on them the fact that discipline and strict obedience to orders are the essence of a military manhood. IIe quoted Tennyson, and made the boys repeat the lines after him: " Theirs not to make rcplv, Theirs not to reason \i'lii'." He succeeded in inspiring them with a tremendous sense of their own importance. My idea was that he ans tryiinr to prepare them for having their knees kissed by Mrs. Miinins. a For a time everything went well. The boys got off goinfiT to school and were immensely pleased. Mrs. Miiiims fed them Ivith daintles at odd hours of the day. and always had a basket of apples in the porch from which they could help themselves. So far as I knew she never attempted to kiss either their knees or any other part of them. The Colonel kept on exhorting them. He paid them a visit every morning. and insisted on their reporting themselves at his house when they went off duty in the evening. About a fortnight after the boys tirst went on guard Mrs, Mimms complained to the vicar that she had found one of them concealed under tilig dintingI-romp tilmlc while she was at luncheo n. She said that she (I( no lit: tie ‘ecinn‘ that . c ‘rr r ' ‘ stretched her leg while she was iii)111233113]lt'l‘iiéckicii‘l )gt cgiiig tiiiblifiizleid to speak to the boy. i i i I i The next day Mrs. Miinms made another complai nt. One of the 15 boys had climbed up by some creepers, and was found by her maid sitting on the window-sill of a bedroom early in the morning. It was not Mrs. Mimms's bedroom, but, as she explained, it might have been. She had no particular objection, so she told the vicar, to a Boy Scout in her bedroom at any reasonable hour, but she (lid not want the child to break his neck. Then the postmaster gave me a hint that Mrs. Miinms's letters, which were posted every day by one of the Scouts, showed signs of having been opened and closed again before they came into his hands. He said that it' this was being done by the Colonel's orders it was all right, but he thought he ought to tell me about it. I met the vicar in the street immediately afterwards and said I thought the Scouts were getting out of hand and ought to be disbanded at once. He agreed with me. \Vhile we were discussing the matter IIankly came up to us and said he heard that Mrs. Mimins was to be arrested at once as a German spy. "'l‘onipkins," he said, "is going about the village saying that she ought to be shot." Tompkins always blamed Mrs. Mimms for the scaling. up of the village pump. and had never spoken a good word about her since. The Vicar was greatly put out. _ " l‘ut~tut ! " he said ; " arrested ! shot I Nonsense. Mrs. Minims is a most estimable lady." "I'm not so sure about that," said Hankly. "Those boys have been watching her lately, and there are several things which look suspicious." I suppose the vicar and I showed our surprise. IIankly went on to explain. " She gives the boys peaches and grapes," he said, " and cakes and meringues. Now I put it to youvthe apples of course I understand. I might give a boy an apple myself, but I put it to you, vicar, would anybody give boys like that hothouse grapes and peaches unless-well, unless there was something to conceal. It‘s not a natural thing to do." "' Now I come to think of it," said the vicar, "I did meet one of them yesterday with a peach in his tist." "There you are," said I'Iankly triumphantly. "and. anyhow, the police inspector is coming over to-day to look into the matter." Mrs. Mimms was not actually arrested. The police Inspector" acting on information received from the Boy Scouts, Tompkins, and HHWI MM"! |