Part 5 (1/2)

”Be careful how you insult me, Thomas. A little more and I shall tell them what happened to you on the ornamental waters in Regent's Park that rough day.”

”Really?” asked Simpson with interest.

”Yes; I fancy he had been rather overdoing it at Swedish drill that morning.”

We gave her ten in silence, and then by mutual consent rested on our oars.

”There's a long way yet,” said Myra. ”Dahlia and I will row if you're tired.”

”This is an insult, Thomas. Shall we sit down under it?”

”Yes,” said Thomas, getting up; ”only in another part of the boat.”

We gave up our seats to the ladies (even in a boat one should be polite) and from a position in the stern waited with turned-up coat-collars for the water to come on board.

”We might have sailed up a little higher,” remarked Simpson. ”It's all right, I'm not a bit wet, thanks.”

”It's too shallow, except at high tide,” said Myra. ”The Armadillo would have gone aground and lost all her--her sh.e.l.l. Do armadilloes have sh.e.l.ls, or what?”

”Feathers.”

”Well, we're a pretty good bank-holiday crowd for the dinghy,” said Archie. ”Simpson, if we upset, save the milk and the sandwiches; my wife can swim.”

The woods were now beginning to come down to the river on both sides, but on the right a gra.s.sy slope broke them at the water's edge for some fifty yards. Thither we rowed, and after a little complicated manoeuvring landed suddenly, Simpson, who was standing in the bows with the boat-hook, being easily the first to reach the sh.o.r.e. He got up quickly, however, apologized, and helped the ladies and the hampers out. Thereafter he was busy for some time, making the dinghy fast with a knot peculiarly his own.

”The first thing to do is to build a palisade to keep the savages off,” said Archie, and he stuck the boat-hook into the ground.

”After which you are requested to light fires to frighten the wild beasts. The woodbines are very wild at this time of the year.”

”We shall have to light a fire anyhow for the tea, so that will be very useful,” said the thoughtful Dahlia.

”I myself,” I said, ”will swim out to the wreck for the musket and the bag of nails.”

”As you're going,” said Myra, unpacking, ”you might get the sugar as well. We've forgotten it.”

”Now you've spoilt my whole holiday. It was bad enough with the cake last week, but this is far, far worse. I shall go into the wood and eat berries.”

”It's all right, here it is. Now you're happy again. I wish, if you aren't too busy, you'd go into the wood and collect sticks for the fire.”

”I am unusually busy,” I said, ”and there is a long queue of clients waiting for me in the ante-room. An extremely long queue--almost a half-b.u.t.t in fact.”

I wandered into the wood alone. Archie and Dahlia had gone arm-in-arm up the hill to look at a view, Simpson was helping Myra with the hampers, and Thomas, the latest arrival from town, was lying on his back, telling them what he alleged to be a good story now going round London. Myra told it to me afterwards, and we agreed that as a boy it had gone round the world several times first. Yet I heard her laugh unaffectedly--what angels women are!

Ten minutes later I returned with my spoil, and laid it before them.

”A piece of brown bread from the bread-fruit tree, a piece of indiarubber from the mango tree, a chutney from the banana grove, and an omelet from the turtle run, I missed the chutney with my first barrel, and brought it down rather luckily with the ricochet.”