. "Do you think I'd tell a story? I
must go back and look for it. Let me down, I say, let me down."

Then Mick turned on him with a very evil expression on his face.

"Stop that, d'ye hear? Stop that," and he lifted his fist threateningly.
"D'ye think I'm going to waste any more time on such brats and their
nonsense? Catch me a-taking you home for you to go and say I've stolen
your money, and get me put in prison by your grandpapas and grandmammas
as likely as not," he went on in a half-threatening, half-whining tone.

Duke was going to answer, but Pamela pulled his sleeve.

"Be quiet, bruvver," she said in a whisper. "Tim said us must wait a
bit."

Almost as she said the words a voice was heard whistling at a little
distance--they were now out of the wood on a rough bridle path. Mick
looked round sharply and descried a figure coming near them.

"What have you been about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why
didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the
donkey and the brats."

Tim stood still in the middle of the path, and stared at them without
speaking. Then he turned round and walked beside Mick, who was leading
the donkey.

"What are ye a-doing with the little master and missy?" he asked coolly.

"Mind yer business," muttered the gipsy gruffly. Then he added in a
louder tone, "Master and missy has lost their way, don't ye see? They're
ever so far from home. It was lucky I met them."

"Are ye a-going to take them home?" continued Tim.

"For sure, when I can find the time. But that won't be just yet a bit.
There's the missus a-waiting for us."

And, turning a corner, they came suddenly in sight of the other
gipsies--the two women and the big sulky-looking boy--gathered round a
tree, the donkey's panniers and the various bundles the party had been
carrying lying on the ground beside them. If the panniers had been
unpacked and their contents spread out, as Mick had told the children,
they had certainly been quickly packed up again. But there was no time
for wondering about how this could be; the woman whom the pedlar called
"the missus" came up to her husband as soon as she saw them, and said a
few words hastily, and with a look of great annoyance, in the queer
language she had spoken before, to which he replied with some angry
expression which it was probably well the children did not understand.

"Better have done with it, I should say," said the other woman, who was
much yo