any one ever stood up in. But no matter where he went he brought good fortune and great luck to the house that roofed him—
Mary Poppins ceased speaking. For a moment her hands lay still in her lap and her eyes gazed out un- seeingly across the Lake.
Then she sighed and gave her shoulders a little shake and stood up.
'Now then!' she said briskly, 'Best Feet Forward! And off home!'
She turned to find Jane's eyes fixed steadily upon her.
'You'll know me next time, I hope!' she remarked tartly. 'And you, Michael, get down off that seat at once! Do you want to break your neck and give me the trouble of calling a Policeman?'
She strapped the Twins into the perambulator and pushed it in front of her with a quick impatient movement.
Jane and Michael fell into step behind.
'I wonder where the King of the Castle went when the rainbow disappeared?' said Michael thoughtfully.
'He went with it, I suppose, wherever it goes,' said Jane. 'But what I wonder is — what happened to the Rascal?'
Mary Poppins had wheeled the perambulator into the Elm Walk. And as the children turned the corner, Michael caught Jane's hand.
'There he is!' he cried excitedly, pointing down the Elm Walk to the Park Gates.
A tall slim figure, curiously dressed in red-and-yellow, was swaggering towards the entrance. He stood for a moment, looking up and down Cherry Tree Lane, and whistling. Then he slouched across to the opposite pavement and swung himself lazily over one of the garden fences.
'It's ours!' said Jane, recognising it by the brick that had always been missing. 'He's gone into our garden. Run, Michael. Let's catch up with him!'
They ran at a gallop after Mary Poppins and the perambulator.
'Now then, now then! No horse-play, please!' said Mary Poppins, grabbing Michael's arm firmly as he rushed by.
'But we want—' he began, squirming.
'
Unwillingly Jane fell into step beside her.
As a rule, Mary Poppins allowed nobody to push the perambulator except herself. But to-day it seemed to Jane that she was purposely preventing them from running ahead. For here was Mary Poppins, who usually walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with her, going at a snail's pace down the Elm Walk, pausing every few minutes to gaze about her, and standing for at least a minute in front of a basket of litter.
At last, after what seemed to them like hours, they came to the Park Gates. She kept them beside her until they reached the gate of Number Seventeen. Then they broke from her and went flying through the garden.
They darted behind the lilac tree. Not there! They searched among the rhododendrons and looked in the glasshouse, the tool-shed and the water-butt. They even peered into a circle of hose-piping. The Dirty Rascal was nowhere to be seen!
There was only one other person in the garden and that was Robertson Ay. He was sound asleep in the middle of the lawn with his cheek against the knives of the lawn-mower.
'We've missed him!' said Michael. 'He must have taken a short-cut and gone out by the back way. Now we'll never see him again.'
He turned back to the lawn-mower.
Jane was standing beside it, looking down affectionately at Robertson Ay. His old felt hat was pulled over his face, its crown crushed and dented into a curving peak.
'I wonder if he had a good Half-day!' said Michael, whispering so as not to disturb him.
But, small as the whisper was, Robertson Ay must have heard it. For he suddenly stirred in his sleep and settled himself more comfortably against the lawnmower. And as he moved there was a faint, jingling sound as though, near at hand, small bells were softly ringing.
With a start, Jane lifted her head and glanced at Michael.
'Did you hear?' she whispered.
He nodded, staring.
Robertson Ay moved again and muttered in his sleep. They bent to listen.
'Black and white cow,' he murmured indistinctly. 'Sat up in a tree… mumble, mumble, mumble… it couldn't be me! Hum…!'
Across his sleeping body Jane and Michael gazed at each other with wondering eyes.
'Humph! Well to be him, I must say!'
Mary Poppins had come up behind them and she too was staring down at Robertson Ay. 'The lazy, idle, Good-for-Nothing!' she said crossly.
But she couldn't really have been as cross as she sounded for she took her handkerchief out of her pocket and slipped it between Robertson Ay's cheek and the lawn-mower.
'He'll have a clean face, anyway, when he wakes up,
But Jane and Michael noticed how careful she had been not to wake Robertson Ay and how soft her eyes were when she turned away.
They tip-toed after her, nodding wisely to one another. Each knew that the other understood.
Mary Poppins trundled the perambulator up the steps and into the hall. The front door shut with a quiet little click.
Outside in the garden Robertson Ay slept on.
That night when Jane and Michael went to say good-night to him, Mr. Banks was in a towering rage. He was dressing to go out to dinner and he couldn't find his best stud.
'Well, by all that's lively, here it is!' he cried suddenly. 'In a tin of stove-blacking — of all things! on my dressing-table. That Robertson Ay's doing. I'll sack that fellow one of these days. He's nothing but a dirty rascal!'
And he could not understand why Jane and Michael, when he said that, burst into such peals of joyous laughter….
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Evening Out
What, no pudding?' said Michael, as Mary Poppins, her arm full of plates, mugs and knives, began to lay the table for Nursery Tea.
She turned and looked at him fiercely.
'This,' she snapped, 'is my Evening Out. So you will eat bread and butter and strawberry-jam and be thankful. There's many a little boy would be glad to have it.'
'
'You want! You want! You're always wanting. If it's not this it's that, and if it's not that it's the other. You'll ask for the Moon next.'
He put his hands in his pockets and moved sulkily away to the window-seat. Jane was kneeling there, staring out at the bright, frosty sky. He climbed up beside her, still looking very cross.
'All right, then! I
He turned hurriedly away from her angry glare.
