better ones than he
could have made up for himself. Girls are useful in some ways. So he
was living in clover, when unfortunately they went and quarrelled about
something."

"Don't see what that's got to do with it," I said.

"Nor don't I," rejoined Edward. "But anyhow the notes and things
stopped, and so did the shillings. Bobby was fairly cornered, for he
had bought two ferrets on tick, and promised to pay a shilling a week,
thinking the shillings were going on for ever, the silly young ass. So
when the week was up, and he was being dunned for the shilling, he went
off to the fellow and said, 'Your broken-hearted Bella implores you to
meet her at sundown,--by the hollow oak, as of old, be it only for
a moment. Do not fail!' He got all that out of some rotten book, of
course. The fellow looked puzzled and said,--

"'What hollow oak? I don't know any hollow oak.'

"'Perhaps it was the Royal Oak?' said Bobby promptly, 'cos he saw he
had made a slip, through trusting too much to the rotten book; but this
didn't seem to make the fellow any happier."

"Should think not," I said, "the Royal Oak's an awful low sort of pub."

"I know," said Edward. "Well, at last the fellow said, 'I think I know
what she means: the hollow tree in your father's paddock. It happens to
be an elm, but she wouldn't know the difference. All right: say I'll be
there.' Bobby hung about a bit, for he hadn't got his money. 'She was
crying awfully,' he said. Then he got his shilling."

"And wasn't the fellow riled," I inquired, "when he got to the place and
found nothing?"

"He found Bobby," said Edward, indignantly. "Young Ferris was a
gentleman, every inch of him. He brought the fellow another message from
Bella: 'I dare not leave the house. My cruel parents immure me closely
If you only knew what I suffer. Your broken-hearted Bella.' Out of the
same rotten book. This made the fellow a little suspicious,'cos it was
the old Ferrises who had been keen about the thing all through: the
fellow, you see, had tin."

"But what's that got to--" I began again.

"Oh, _I_ dunno," said Edward, impatiently. "I'm telling you just what
Bobby told me. He got suspicious, anyhow, but he couldn't exactly call
Bella's brother a liar, so Bobby escaped for the time. But when he was
in a hole next week, over a stiff French exercise, and tried the same
sort of game on his sister, she was too sharp for him, and he got caught
out. Somehow women seem more mistrustful