d the vicar correcting himself, being a student of Paley
and a keen logician as to phraseology; "how did you get there?"

"I made a raft," explained Teddy in short broken sentences, which were
interrupted at intervals through the necessary exertion he had to make
every now and then to keep from tumbling into the water and hold Puck.
"I made a raft like--like Robinson Crusoe, and--and--I've brought Puck--
uck with me, 'cause I didn't have a parrot or a cat. I--I--I wanted to
get to the island; b-b-but I can't go any further as the raft is stuck,
and--and I've lost my stick to push it with. Oh--I was nearly over
there!"

"It would be a wholesome lesson to you if you got a good ducking!" said
the vicar sternly, albeit the reminiscences of Robinson Crusoe and the
fact of Teddy endeavouring to imitate that ideal hero of boyhood struck
him in a comical light and he turned away to hide a smile. "Come to the
bank at once, sir!"

Easy enough as it was for the vicar to give this order, it was a very
different thing for Teddy, in spite of every desire on his part, to obey
it; for, the moment he put down Puck on the leafy flooring of the raft,
the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add
to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch
of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it
either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly
oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet's coffin
'twixt heaven and earth!

Urged on, however, by his father's command, Teddy tried as gallantly as
any shipwrecked mariner to reach land again; but, what with Puck
hampering his efforts, and his brisk movements on the frail structure,
this all at once separated into its original elements through the
clothes-line becoming untied, leaving Teddy struggling amidst the debris
of broken rails and branches--Puck ungratefully abandoning his master in
his extremity and making instinctively for the shore.

The vicar plunged in frantically to the rescue, wading out in the mud
until he was nearly out of his depth, and then swimming up to Teddy,
who, clutching a portion of his dismembered raft, had managed to keep
afloat; although, he was glad enough when his father's arm was round him
and he found himself presently deposited on the bank in safety, where
they were now alone, all the village boys having rushed off _en masse_,
yelling out the alarm at the