n't my fault you let it run down a hole in the loft."

"When it proved directly that it was your old one, for there it stops."

"I shouldn't pay him the other shilling till he got it out, Tom," I
said.

"I don't mean to. How many times have you been to look for it, Magg?"

"How many times? I didn't count. Every morn when I come to work have I
gone down on my chestie in that there loft, watching o' them rat-holes."

"Yes, and you've never caught him. Four shillings did I pay you for
that ferret--"

"And a shillin' more to pay," said Magglin, grinning. "And only once
have I seen his nasty ugly little pink nose since, when he poked it out
of a hole and slipped back again.

"But then see how he must have kept down the rats," said the man.

"Bother the rats. I want my ferret." Mercer turned sharply round to
me.

"I say," he whispered, "he's a blackguard and a cheat. We wanted to
practise. Let's both pitch into him."

I naturally enough laughed at the idea, and, looking round at the under
gardener, I saw that he was watching us with his rat-like eyes.

"I say," he whispered, with an accompaniment of nods and winks, "I was
lying wait for you two."

"We're not rabbits, Magg," I said.

"Who said you was?" he cried, with a sharp look round behind him.

"Nor yet hares, Magg," cried Mercer.

"Now look ye here," said the fellow appealingly, "it's too bad on you
two chuckin' things in a man's face like that now. Ain't I always
getting a honest living? You talk like that, and somebody'll be
thinkin' I go porching."

"So you do," said Mercer.

"What, porch?"

"Yes. I know. Bob Hopley says so too."

"Only hark at him," cried Magglin, "talking like that! Why, Bob
Hopley's a chap as must do something to show for his wage, and he'd take
any man's character away. He hate me, he do."

"Yes, and you hate him, Magg," I said.

The fellow turned on me sharply, but a curiously ugly smile began to
make curves like parentheses at the corners of his lips, and he showed
his teeth directly after.

"Well, I ain't so very fond of him," he said. "But look here, there
ain't no harm in a rabbid, and I was looking out for you two to ast if
you'd like to meet me, just by accident like, somewheers down to this
side o' High Pines, where the sandhills is. There's a wonderful lot o'
rabbids there just now."

"Yes, but when?" cried Mercer. "I want a rabbit or two to skin and
stuff."

"And you'd gie me the rabbids