Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/172

160 the foot of the page turns my stomach. I have served in my time many different masters, and mistresses; and it still pleases me, after quitting their service, to recognise the distinction between their dues. So it must have been the heat that made me select a Pink Tract. I leant back with my head in the shadow to digest its crude absurdity.

It was entitled, "How infernally Hot!" I doubt not the words were put in the mouth of some sinner, and the moral dwelt on their literal significance. But half-way down the first page sleep must have descended on me: and I woke up to the sound of light footsteps.

Pit-a-pat—pit-a-pat-a-pit-pat. I lifted my head.

Two small children were coming along the road towards me, hand-in-hand, through the heat—a boy and a girl; who, drawing near and spying my long legs sprawling out into the dust, came to a stand, finger in mouth.

"Hullo, my dears!" I called out, "what are you doing out in this weather?"

The children stared at one another, and were