Page:Wren--The young stagers.djvu/40

22 perhaps he has got more sense than to get in my way. My faithful armour-bearer, Hog, will have a free ride by my side and pot any Roman seen interfering with the horse—I mean the three horses—as they gallop along. He is Company Marksman"

Wild yelps from the mob.

—"at very short range."

Soft murmurs from mob.

"Thank you, my friends, thank you," concluded the Queen. "The collection will be in aid of the families of me and the Hog."

The next thing was to discover some reasonably satisfactory Romans.

"I don't thuppothe Widdy and Venus would mind taking part," suggested the Vice.

Widdy was a big white Persian cat, and Venus a bigger white bull-dog.

"No," agreed the Vice, "they wouldn't mind obliging. Rout them out."

Widdy, as usual, was asleep in her basket on the back verandah and Venus was in his kennel. They expressed no objection to sustaining the rôles of Romans. Augmented by a bronze