"
The children, with a fine air of unconcern, abandoned the see-saw.
"Follow my leader!" Gerald cried, and ran along a barked oak
trunk, the others following. In and out and round about ran the file
of children, over heaps of logs, under the jutting ends of piled
planks, and just as the policeman's heavy boots trod the
towing-path Gerald halted at the end of a little landing-stage of
rotten boards, with a rickety handrail, cried "Pax!" and blew his
nose with loud fervour.
"Morning," he said immediately.
"Morning," said Johnson. "Got a cold, ain't you?"
"Ah! I shouldn't have a cold if I'd got boots like yours," returned
Gerald admiringly. "Look at them. Anyone ud know your fairy
footstep a mile off. How do you ever get near enough to anyone to
arrest them?" He skipped off the landing-stage, whispered as he
passed Johnson, "Courage, promptitude, and dispatch. That's the
place," and was off again, the active leader of an active procession.
"We've brought a friend home to dinner," said Kathleen, when
Eliza opened the door. "Where's Mademoiselle?"
"Gone to see Yalding Towers. Today's show day, you know. An
just you hurry over your dinners. It's my afternoon out, and my
gentleman friend don't like it if he's kept waiting."
"All right, we'll eat like lightning," Gerald promised. "Set another
place, there's an angel."
They kept their word.
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