Read Online William the Fourth by Richmal Crompton - Free Book Online

murmured.
    However, his opinion of her rose the next morning.
    ‘I’d like to give you some treat, William dear,’ she said at breakfast, ‘to mark the festive season – something quiet and orderly – as I don’t approve
of merry-making.’
    William looked at her kind, weak face, with the spectacles and scraped-back hair, and sighed. He thought that Aunt Jane would be enough to dispel the hilarity of any treat. Great-Aunt
Jane’s father had been a Plymouth Brother, and Great-Aunt Jane had been brought up to disbelieve in pleasure except as a potent aid of the devil.
    William asked for a day in which to choose the treat. He discussed it with his friends.
    ‘Well,’ advised Ginger, ‘you jolly well oughter choose something she can’t muck up like when my aunt took me to a messy ole museum and showed me stones and things –
no animals nor nuffin’.’
    ‘What about the Zoo?’ said Henry
    The Zoo was suggested to Great-Aunt Jane, but she shuddered slightly. ‘I don’t think I could, ’ she said. ‘It’s so dangerous, I always feel. Those bars
look so fragile. I should never forgive myself if little William were mangled by wild beasts when in my care.’
    William sighed and called his friends together again.
    ‘She won’t go to the Zoo,’ said William. ‘Somethin’ or other about bars an’ mangles.’
    ‘Well, what about Maskelyne’s and Devant’s?’ said Henry. ‘My uncle took me once. It’s all magic’
    William, much cheered at the prospect, suggested Maskelyne’s that evening. Aunt Jane thought it over for some time, then shook her head.
    ‘No, dear,’ she said. ‘I feel that these illusions aren’t quite honest. They pretend to do something they really couldn’t do, and it practically amounts to
falsehood. They deceive the eye, and all deceit is wrong.’
    William groaned and returned to his advisory council.
    ‘She’s awful,’ he said gloomily. ‘She’s cracky, I think.’
    They discussed the matter again. Douglas had seen a notice of a fair as he came along.
    ‘Try that,’ he said. ‘There’s merry-go-rounds an’ shows an’ coconut-shies an’ all sorts. It oughter be all right.’
    That evening William suggested a fair. Aunt Jane looked frightened. ‘What exactly happens in a fair?’ she said earnestly.
    William had learnt tact.
    ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you just walk around and look at things.’
    ‘What sort of things do you look at?’ said Aunt Jane.
    ‘Oh, just stalls of gingerbreads an’ lemonade.’
    It sounded harmless. Aunt Jane’s face cleared.
    ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Of course, I could stand outside while you walked round . . .’
    But upon investigation it appeared that William’s parents had not that perfect trust in William that William seemed to think was his due, and objected strongly to William’s walking
round by himself. So Aunt Jane steeled herself to dally openly with the evil power of Pleasure-making.
    ‘We can be quite quick,’ she said, ‘and it doesn’t sound very bad.’
    William reported progress to his council.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The ole luny’s going to the fair.’
    Then his cheerfulness departed.
    ‘Though, when you come to think of it,’ he said, ‘it jolly well won’t be much fun for me.’
    ‘Well,’ said Ginger, ‘s’pose we all try to go there the same time. We can leave your ole Aunt Jane somewhere an’ go off, can’t we?’
    William brightened.
    ‘That sounds better,’ he said. ‘I guess she’ll be quite easy to leave.’
    Aunt Jane was so nervous that she did not sleep at all on the night before the day arranged for the treat. Never before in her blameless life had Aunt Jane deliberately entered
a place of entertainment.
    ‘I do hope,’ she murmured on the threshold, holding William firmly by the hand, ‘that there’s nothing really wrong in it.’
    She was dressed in a long and voluminous black skirt, a long and voluminous black coat, and a small black hat, adorned