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 "No, it's only like it. Let's get back to the unconscious stranger."

They did, and Gerald begged the elderly Ugly-Wugly to retire among the bushes with Jimmy; "because, said he, "I think the poor bailiff's coming round, and it might upset him to see strangers—and Jimmy'll keep you company. He's the best one of us to go with you," he added hastily.

And this, since Jimmy had the ring, was certainly true.

So the two disappeared behind the rhododendrons. Mabel came back with the salts just as the bailiff opened his eyes.

"It's just like life," she said; "I might just as well not have gone. However" She knelt down at once and held the bottle under the sufferer's nose till he sneezed and feebly pushed her hand away with the faint question:

"What's up now?"

"You've hurt your head," said Gerald. "Lie still."

"No—more—smelling-bottle," he said weakly, and lay.

Quite soon he sat up and looked round him. There was an anxious silence. Here was a grown-up who knew last night's secret, and none of the children were at all sure what the utmost rigour of the law might be in a case where people, no matter how young, made Ugly-Wuglies, and brought them to life—dangerous, fighting, angry life. What would