e river afterwards?"

"I'm infinitely obliged to you," said the Lamb courteously, "but I
should prefer solitude. Go home to your lunch--I mean your dinner.
Perhaps I may look in about tea-time--or I may not be home till after
you are in your beds."

Their beds! Speaking glances flashed between the wretched four. Much bed
there would be for them if they went home without the Lamb.

"We promised mother not to lose sight of you if we took you out," Jane
said before the others could stop her.

"Look here, Jane," said the grown-up Lamb, putting his hands in his
pockets and looking down at her, "little girls should be seen and not
heard. You kids must learn not to make yourselves a nuisance. Run along
home now--and perhaps, if you're good, I'll give you each a penny
to-morrow."

"Look here," said Cyril, in the best "man to man" tone at his command,
"where are you going, old man? You might let Bobs and me come with
you--even if you don't want the girls."

This was really rather noble of Cyril, for he never did care much about
being seen in public with the Lamb, who of course after sunset would be
a baby again.

The "man to man" tone succeeded.

"I shall run over to Maidstone on my bike," said the new Lamb airily,
fingering the little black mustache. "I can lunch at The Crown--and
perhaps I'll have a pull on the river; but I can't take you all on the
machine--now, can I? Run along home, like good children."

The position was desperate. Robert exchanged a despairing look with
Cyril. Anthea detached a pin from her waistband, a pin whose withdrawal
left a gaping chasm between skirt and bodice, and handed it furtively to
Robert--with a grimace of the darkest and deepest meaning. Robert
slipped away to the road. There, sure enough, stood a bicycle--a
beautiful new one. Of course Robert understood at once that if the Lamb
was grown up he _must_ have a bicycle.

[Illustration: There, sure enough, stood a bicycle]

This had always been one of Robert's own reasons for wishing to be
grown-up. He hastily began to use the pin--eleven punctures in the back
tyre, seven in the front. He would have made the total twenty-two but
for the rustling of the yellow hazel-leaves, which warned him of the
approach of the others. He hastily leaned a hand on each wheel, and was
rewarded by the "whish" of the what was left of air escaping from
eighteen neat pin-holes.

"Your bike's run down," said Robert, wondering how he could so soon have