It'll have to be hands and knees
through most places for me now, I suppose."
"Aren't you hungry?" Jimmy asked suddenly.
"I don't know," said Mabel desolately; "it's it's such a long way
off!"
"Well, I'll scout," said Gerald; "if the coast's clear "
"Look here," said Mabel, "I think I'd rather be out of doors till it
gets dark."
"You can't. Someone's certain to see you."
"Not if I go through the yew-hedge," said Mabel. "There's a
yew-hedge with a passage along its inside like the box-hedge in
The Luck of the Vails.
"In what?"
"The Luck of the Vails. It's a ripping book. It was that book first
set me on to hunt for hidden doors in panels and things. If I crept
along that on my front, like a serpent it comes out amongst the
rhododendrons, close by the dinosaurus we could camp there.
"There's tea," said Gerald, who had had no dinner.
"That's just what there isn't," said Jimmy, who had had none either.
"Oh, you won't desert me!" said Mabel. "Look here I'll write to
auntie. She'll give you the things for a picnic, if she's there and
awake. If she isn't, one of the maids will."
So she wrote on a leaf of Gerald's invaluable pocketbook:
"DEAREST AUNTIE Please may we have some things for a
picnic? Gerald will bring them. I would come myself, but I am a
little tired. I think I have been growing rather fast. Your loving
niece, MABEL.
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