I expect that their opponents are in a worse position
still. I've been thinking of taking proceedings against this Jones, for
really this is such a flagrant affair; but, after all, perhaps we had
better treat the matter with the contempt it deserves."

What more Mr Inglis would have said I cannot tell, for he was
interrupted by the stuffy-looking head of Harry being thrust into the
room, and a voice that must have been his, though the lips were
immovable, saying--

"I say, Pa, you ain't very cross, are you?"

Harry was started off to bed again, and Mr Inglis turned to his books,
so that the question was not discussed any more.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

The days slipped pleasantly by, and the boys had nearly lost all traces
of their unpleasant encounter. They had been fishing again at the mill,
and had a long talk with Dusty Bob, who had promised to make them some
namesakes, namely "bobs" for eel-catching in the dam, and they were to
be ready on the Wednesday evening following. This was Tuesday, and
after a hot day, during which they had been having fine sport in the
field--where the men were getting in a lateish crop of hay-making hay
huts, and then when the abode was tenanted, knocking it down upon the
unfortunate inhabitant, who by this means was half smothered, which
Harry said constituted the best part of the fun--a kind of fun that Fred
could not see, for the view he took of the matter was like that of the
pelted frogs in the fable, and after being covered up with a mass of
hay, and having had Harry and Philip sitting on the top of that, he had
crawled out at last very hot, stuffy, bitty, and uncomfortable, and
could not be persuaded to enter the hay hut again.

The boys had worked hard in the field; turning the hay, making it into
cocks, tossing them out, and then helping to load the waggon, and taking
the high-piled load to the stack-yard--the part the boys managed in
taking the load being that of riding on the top amidst the sweet-scented
new hay, and having to lie flat down as the mass passed beneath the tall
gateway and under the granary into the yard. On the way back, Harry
rode the leading horse, making stirrups of the traces, while his legs
stuck out at a very obtuse angle one from the other, in consequence of
the round back of the fat cart-horse.

Harry was the most venturesome of the three boys in all things, and yet,
in spite of his daring, he met with fewer mishaps tha