of mouse-birds light just now; over there, just this
side of the mealie land."

The spot indicated would take the small intruder fairly out of sight.

"No good, catapult's broken."

"Why don't you go to the house and get another?"

"They're all broken. Mr Selmes, couldn't you mend it for me?"

"I'll try. Let's see. Ah, got a bit of _reimpje_ about you?"

The youngster felt in his pockets.

"No, I haven't," he said.

"Well, you'd better cut away to the house and get one," said Dick.

There is a modicum of cussedness, sometimes vague, sometimes more
pronounced, inherent in most children.

This one had his share of it. He was fond of Hazel, and attached to his
rescuer, yet there was something about the two which had aroused his
infantile curiosity. When he saw them alone together--which he did
pretty frequently--a sort of instinct to watch them would come uppermost
in his unformed mind, and this was upon him now. So he said--

"Never mind about the catapult, Mr Selmes. I'm tired. I'll sit and
talk to you and Hazel."

"Well, what shall we talk about, Jacky?" said Dick, making a virtue of
necessity.

"Oh, let's go on talking about--what you were talking about while I
came."

This was funny. The two looked at each other.

"But that wouldn't interest you in the least, Jacky," answered the girl.
"In fact, you wouldn't understand it."

The sharp eyes of the youngster were full upon her face, and did not
fail to notice that she changed colour slightly. When he himself had
done something which he ought not to have done, and was taxed with it,
he would change colour too; wherefore now he drew his own deductions.
What could Hazel have been doing that came within that category?

"Never mind," he said. "I won't tell. No, I won't."

"Won't tell?" repeated Hazel. "Won't tell what, Jacky?"

"I won't tell," was all they could get out of him. Dick Selmes burst
out laughing.

"Before you can `tell' anything, kid, you must first of all have
something to tell," he said. "You've been talking a lot of bosh. Now,
I think we'd better go in, for it must be getting on for dinner-time."
The two got up, and as they strolled along beneath the high quince
hedge, hanging out round fruit, like the balls upon a Christmas tree,
both hoped for an opportunity of at any rate satisfactorily closing
their conversation. But it was not to be. That little wretch stuck to
them like their shadow, nor did either want to inf