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 a thing. But I thank you, I thank you heaps for your good intentions.”

The Scout Master cracked heels, laid a palm over the region of the pit of the stomach, and bowed low. Then, with a whirl, the youngster started down the walk. Only a few steps had been covered when the small figure turned and the Scout Master called back: “I didn’t have time to-day, but remind me the next time I come and I’ll do the Lame Duck and the Wet Hen for you. I made ’em up myself. I have to have a bathing suit and a dock to do ’em right, but I could pretend I had on a bathing suit and the walk was a dock and off of it was water, and show you how it goes. I’m nifty about the Wet Hen. I think I do her spiffy.”

“I’ll remember,” said Jamie. “I’ll surely remember.”

He waited before turning to the house because he liked to see the agility, the free sweep, the unfailing grace with which the little Scout skinned the line fence between the grounds of the Bee Master and Margaret Cameron.

The next morning before Jamie took up the line of march for the beach, he called his neighbour. Since she said nothing herself he ignored the fact that her eyes were red and her hands tremulous, but he did wonder. He wondered exceedingly whether it was the Lolly he had not liked so particularly well from the Scout Master’s description, or whether it was the illness of the Bee Mastet that worried so fine a woman as Margaret Cameron.

Jamie stretched himself on his bed and laid his hands on