that again I shall hit you," cried Bob fiercely.

"Oh, very well, I won't say it," I said; "but I say, wouldn't you wear a
suit of old Big's?"

I said it quite seriously, but he regularly glared and seemed as if he
were going to fly at me, but he neither moved nor spoke.

"Never mind about your clothes," I said. "Big's sure to be over before
long. Let's get out on the cliff, or down by the shore, or go hunting
up in the moor, or something."

"What, like this?" said Bob, getting up to turn round before me and show
me how tight his clothes were.

"Well, what does it matter?" I said. "Nobody will see us."

"It isn't seeing you," he replied, "it's seeing me. No, I sha'n't go
out till I get some clothes."

Bob kept his word, and for the rest of the holidays when I went out it
always used to be with Bigley Uggleston. But we did not neglect poor
Bob, for we went to see him nearly every day, and played games with him
in the garden, and finished the gooseberries, and began the apples,
contriving to enjoy ourselves pretty well.

As for the doctor, it was his way of dealing with his son, and I suppose
he thought he was right; but it was very unpleasant, and kept poor Bob
out of many a bit of enjoyment, those clothes being locked away.

I said that Bob would not go out. I ought to have said, by daylight,
for he used to go with us after dark down to the end of the tiny pier,
where we sat with our legs swinging over the water, each holding a
fishing-line and waiting for any fish that might be tempted to take the
raw mussel stuck upon our hooks.

But somehow that narrow escape of ours seemed to act like a damper upon
the rest of our holidays, and I spent a good deal of my time with
Bigley, watching the preparations made by the masons at the works in the
Gap.

We all declared that we were not sorry when one morning old Teggley
Grey's cart stopped at our gate to take up my box. Bob Chowne's was
already in, and he was sitting upon it, while Bigley was half-way up the
slope leading over the moor waiting by the road-side with his.

I said "Good-bye" to my father, who shook my hand warmly.

"Learn all you can, Sep," he said, "and get to be a man, for you have a
busy life before you, and before long I shall want you to help me."

I climbed in, and old Teggley drew out the corners of his lips and
grinned as if he was glad that Bob Chowne was so miserable. For Bob did
not move, only sat with his hands supporting his f