ng about under the elm-trees, pretty close to where the new
piece of fence marked the place where the elephant went through.

Yielding to Glyn, Singh would have walked quietly up with him and been
ready enough under his friend's guidance to embark on any sport or game
that was going on; but as Glyn afterwards said when he was laughing it
over, "old Slegge" made the pepper-stopper shoot out at once, for, after
evidently seeing who were approaching, he slowly edged himself round
till his back was to the companions, and began talking aloud, measuring
the time by means of his ears till he came to the conclusion that Singh
was near enough to catch everything he said, and even Glyn winced as he
heard the lad say:

"Oh, by the way, you fellows, I suppose you have done it for a lark, and
you mean to put it back in my box; but I have missed my turban, the one
with the big pearl in it that fastens the plume of feathers."

The boys were silent, staring at the speaker, for they did not catch the
point of the remark; and Slegge continued:

"You see, I set great store by that turban. It was an old one of my
father's, and of course it was very valuable. You see, in Bungly Horror
a turban like that--some fellows call them puggamarees, but that's only
because they are ignorant beggars--but as I was saying, turbans like
that come down from father to son. I don't know how old this one was,
and nobody notices that they are old, because they always go so
regularly to the wash; and you know the more muslin's washed the whiter
it gets, while as for the holes, of course, they are the beauty of it,
because it gets to look more and more like splendid old lace."

Slegge's remarks remained problematical for a few moments, and then the
meaning came with a flash to Burton, who had suddenly caught sight of
Singh and Glyn.

He burst into a merry guffaw at once, and thus set off the rest, while
Slegge waited till they had done before going on with the by no means
poor imitation of Singh's manner of speaking and a rather peculiar
utterance of the consonant _r_.

"I don't know what you fellows are laughing at," he said, with a look of
supreme innocency; "but I suppose you don't know any better. It's your
ignorance of the value of family relics like that; and because you never
see me bouncing about the schoolyard with my turban on, you think I
haven't got one in my box--I mean, had one; so now no more nonsense.
Whoever took it for a lark had be