ttle Deeping, and watched it from the edge of the
common. They saw their prey in the garden; and he tried their patience
by staying there for nearly a quarter of an hour.

Then he came briskly up the road to the common. Their eyes began to
shine with the expectation of immediate triumph, when, thirty yards
from the common's edge, in a sudden access of caution, he bolted for
covert and disappeared in the gorse sixty yards away on their left.
They fell noiselessly back, going as quickly as concealment permitted,
to cut him off. They were successful. They caught him crossing an
open space, yelled "Bang!" together; and in accordance with the rules
of the game Wiggins fell to the ground.

They scalped him with yells of such a piercing triumph that the
immemorial oaks for a quarter of a mile round emptied themselves
hastily of the wood-pigeons feeding on their acorns.

Wiggins rose gloomily, gloomily took from his knickerbockers pocket his
tattered and grimy notebook, gloomily made an entry in it, and gloomily
said: "That makes you two games ahead." Then he spurned the earth and
added: "I'm going to have a bicycle."

The Twins looked at each other darkly; Erebus scowled, and a faint
frown broke the ineffable serenity of the Terror's face.

"There'll be no living with Wiggins now, he'll be so cocky," said
Erebus bitterly.

"Oh, no; he won't," said the Terror. "But we ought to have bicycles,
too. We want them badly. We never get really far from the village.
We always get stopped on the way--rats, or something." And his
guileless, dreamy blue eyes swept the distant autumn hills with a look
of yearning.

"There are orchards over there where they don't know us," said Erebus
wistfully.

"We _must_ have bicycles. I've been thinking so for a long time," said
the Terror.

"We must have the moon!" said Erebus with cold scorn.

"Bicycles aren't so far away," said the Terror sagely.

They moved swiftly across the common. Erebus poured forth a long
monotonous complaint about the lack of bicycles, which, for them, made
this Cosmic All a mere time-honored cheat. With ears impervious to his
sister's vain lament, the Terror strode on serenely thoughtful,
pondering this pressing problem. Now and again, for obscure but
profound reasons, Wiggins spurned the earth and proceeded by leaps and
bounds.

Possibly it was the monotonous plaint of his sister which caused the
Terror to say: "I've got a penny. We'll go and get