[Frontispiece: "Cats for the cats' home!" said Sir Maurice Falconer.]

THE TERRIBLE TWINS

By

EDGAR JEPSON

Author of
The Admirable Tinker, Pollyooly, etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HANSON BOOTH

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1913
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

[Updater's note: In the originally posted version of this book (August 14, 2006), four pages (3, 4, 53, 54) were missing. In early February 2008, the missing pages were found, scanned and submitted by a reader of the original etext and incorporated into this updated version.]

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

"Cats for the cats' home!" said Sir Maurice Falconer. . . . . . Frontispiece

"This is different," she said.

We are avenged.

She was almost sorry when they came at last to the foot of the knoll.

The Archduke bellowed, "Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!"

Sir James turned and found himself looking into the deep brown eyes
of a very pretty woman.

THE TERRIBLE TWINS

CHAPTER I

AND CAPTAIN BASTER

For all that their voices rang high and hot, the Twins were really discussing the question who had hit Stubb's bull-terrier with the greatest number of stones, in the most amicable spirit. It was indeed a nice question and hard to decide since both of them could throw stones quicker, straighter and harder than any one of their size and weight for miles and miles round; and they had thrown some fifty at the bull-terrier before they had convinced that dense, but irritated, quadruped that his master's interests did not really demand his presence in the orchard; and of these some thirty had hit him. Violet Anastasia Dangerfield, who always took the most favorable view of her experience, claimed twenty hits out of a possible thirty; Hyacinth Wolfram Dangerfield, in a very proper spirit, had at once claimed the same number; and both of them were defending their claims with loud vehemence, because if you were not loudly vehement, your claim lapsed.

Suddenly Hyacinth Wolfram, as usual, closed the discussion; he said firmly, "I tell you what: we both hit that dog the same number of times."

So saying, he swung round the rude calico bag, bulging with booty, which hung from his shoulders, and took from it two Ribston pippins.

"Perhaps we