ne, we drenched July, and we drowned August. We squelched the
strawberry season, reducing tons of promising fruit to flavourless
pulp, and the growers to damp despair. Whooosh!! What a wetting we
gave 'em!!! As soon as the Cricket Season started, so did _we_! Didn't
we just? We simply sopped all the wickets, and spoilt all the matches,
either keeping the cricketers waiting in the pavilion or slipping
about on sloppy slithery turf. Consequently, the Cricketing Season
has been a sickening sell. We 'watered down' the 'averages' of all the
'cracks.' S.W. was too many for W.G. (GRACE, of Gloucester), and W.W.
gave the _other_ W.W. (READ, of Surrey) a fair doing! We followed 'The
Leviathan' in particular about persistently, till he must be real
glad to 'take his hook' to Australia. Wherever _he_ was playing, from
Kennington to Clifton, we combined our forces, swooped down on him,
and simply washed him out!"

"Wanton wags!" said the Mother of the Winds, reproachfully.

"Ra-_ther_," yelled her promising offspring in chorus. "But that's not
all, _is_ it, S.W.?--_is_ it W.W.? We mucked up Lawn Tennis, soaked
Henley Regatta, nearly spoilt the German EMPEROR's visit, ruined all
the _al fresco_ functions of the Season--slap!--flooded Society out
of London, only to deluge them in their flitting till they wished they
were back again, intensified the Influenza Epidemic, and--"

"Oh! stop, stop!" moaned the Old Woman. "Those Boys yonder will
burst--with jealousy. But what have you been doing to the Princess
AGRICULTURA here?"

The two broke into a spasmodic duo of delight and disdain. "Why _look_
at her?" they cried. "Doesn't she speak for herself?"

"I _do_," replied AGRICULTURA. "And I charge this pair of Pernicious
Pickles with planning--and to a large extent effecting--my
Destruction! Hay, Hops, Cereals, Root-Crops, Fruits and Flowers--all
ruined by these roystering rascals. They've done more incurable
mischief in three supposed-to-be Summer Months than those
much-maligned Boys over yonder did all the Winter. They've had it all
their own way the Season through, ay, as much as though they'd nailed
the weathercock to S.W., and knocked out the bottom of Aquarius's
water-pot. And I call upon you, O Mother of the Winds, to pop them at
once into their respective Bags, sit upon them till they are choked
silent and still, and then hang them up to dry--if dry such watery
imps _can_--for at least six months to come!"

Now whether the M