"
"Nothing but us?" asked Mabel breathlessly.
"Oh, lots of things impossible things but you were real enough."
Everyone breathed deeply in relief. It was indeed, as they agreed
later, a lucky let-off.
"Are you sure you're all right?" they all asked, as he got on his feet.
"Perfectly, thank you." He glanced behind Flora's statue as he
spoke. "Do you know, I dreamed there was a door there, but of
course there isn't. I don't know how to thank you," he added,
looking at them with what the girls called his beautiful, kind eyes;
"it's lucky for me you came along. You come here whenever you
like, you know," he added. "I give you the freedom of the place."
"You're the new bailiff, aren't you?" said Mabel.
"Yes. How did you know?" he asked quickly; but they did not tell
him how they knew. Instead, they found out which way he was
going, and went the other way after warm handshakes and hopes
on both sides that they would meet again soon.
"I'll tell you what," said Gerald, as they watched the tall, broad
figure of the bailiff grow smaller across the hot green of the grass
slope, "have you got any idea of how we're going to spend the day?
Because I have."
The others hadn't.
"We'll get rid of that Ugly-Wugly oh, we'll find a way right enough
and directly we've done it we'll go home and seal up the ring in an
envelope so that its teeth'll be drawn and it'll be powerless to have
unforeseen larks with us.
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