The Holiday Round | Page 7

violently in the back
with his oar.

"My dear Thomas, when you have been in the Admiralty a little longer
you will know that 'bow' is not the gentleman who sets the time. What
do you suppose would happen at Queen's Hall if the second bird-call
said to the conductor, 'Henry, you're late'?"
"The whole gallery would go out and get its hair cut," said Archie.
"I'm not used to the Morse system of rowing, that's the trouble,"
explained Thomas. "Long-short, short-short-long, short-long. You're
spelling out the most awful things, if you only knew."
"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 shell. Do armadilloes

have shells, 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 grassy 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 shore. 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-butt 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."
"But how funny; they all look just like sticks of wood."
"That is Nature's plan of protective colouring. In the same way apricots
have often escaped with their lives by sitting in the cream and
pretending to be poached eggs."
"The same instinct of self-preservation," added Archie, "has led many a
pill called Beauchamp to pronounce its name Cholmondeley."
Simpson begged to be allowed to show us how to light a fire, and we
hadn't the heart