Free William the Fourth by Richmal Crompton Page B

sweetly.
    ‘I wouldn’t make him,’ said Ethel nervously. ‘You know what he’s like sometimes.’
    Mrs Brown knew. William – a mute, scowling protest – was no ornament to a drawing-room.
    ‘But wouldn’t you like to meet the little girl?’ said Mrs Brown persuasively.
    ‘Huh!’ ejaculated William.
    The monosyllable looks weak and meaningless in print. As William pronounced it, it was pregnant with scorn and derision and sinister meaning. He curled imaginary moustachios as he uttered it. He
looked round upon his assembled family. Then he uttered the monosyllable again with a yet more sinister smile and scowl. He wondered if Rudolph of the Red Hand had a mother who tried to make him go
out to tea. He decided that he probably hadn’t. Life would be much simpler if you hadn’t.
    With another short, sharp ‘Ha!’ he left the room.
    William sat on an old packing-case in a disused barn.
    Before him stood Ginger, who shared the same classroom in school and pursued much the same occupations and recreations out of school. They were not a popular couple in the neighbourhood.
    William was wearing a mask. The story had not stated what sort of mask Rudolph of the Red Hand had worn, but William supposed it was an ordinary sort of mask. He had one that he’d bought
last Fifth of November, and it seemed a pity to waste it. Moreover, it had the advantage of having moustachios attached. It covered his nose and cheeks, leaving holes for his eyes. It represented
fat, red, smiling cheeks, an enormous red nose, and fluffy grey whiskers. William, on looking at himself in the glass, had felt a slight misgiving. It had been appropriate to the festive season of
November 5th, but he wondered whether it was sufficiently sinister to represent Rudolph of the Red Hand. However, it was a mask, and he could turn his lips into a sinister smile under it, and that
was the main thing. He had definitely and finally embraced a career of crime. On the table before him stood a bottle of liquorice water with an irregularly printed label: GROG. He looked round at
his brave.
    ‘Black-hearted Dick,’ he said, ‘you gotter say, “Present”.’
    He was rather vague as to how outlaws opened their meetings, but this seemed the obvious way
    ‘Present,’ said Ginger, ‘an’ it’s not much fun if it’s all goin’ to be like school.’
    ‘Well, it’s not,’ said William firmly, ‘an’ you can have a drink of grog – only one swallow,’ he added anxiously, as he saw Black-hearted Dick
throwing his head well back preparatory to the draught.
    ‘That was a jolly big one,’ he said, torn between admiration at the feat and annoyance at the disappearance of his liquorice water.
    ‘All right,’ said Ginger modestly. ‘I’ve gotter big throat. Well, what we goin’ to do first?’
    William adjusted his mask, which was not a very good fit, and performed the sinister smile.
    ‘BLACK-HEARTED DICK,’ HE SAID, ‘YOU’VE GOTTER SAY “PRESENT”.’
    ‘We gotter kidnap someone first,’ he said.
    ‘Well, who?’ said Ginger.
    ‘Someone who can pay us money for ’em.’
    ‘Well, who?’ said Ginger irritably.
    William took a deep draught of liquorice water.
    ‘Well, you can think of someone.’
    ‘I like that,’ said Ginger, in tones of deep dissatisfaction. ‘I like that. You set up to be captain and wear that thing, and drink up all the liquorice
water—’
    ‘Grog,’ William corrected him, wearily.
    ‘Well, grog, an’ then you don’t know who we’ve gotter kidnap. I like that. Might as well be rat hunting or catching tadpoles or chasin’ cats, if you don’t
know what we’ve gotter do.’
    William snorted and smiled sneeringly beneath his bilious-looking mask.
    ‘Huh!’ he said. ‘You come with me and I’ll find someone for you to kidnap right enough.’
    Ginger cheered up at this news, and William took another draught of liquorice water. Then he hung up his mask behind the barn door and took out of his pocket a