!"

There was an incredulous gasp.

Then there came a clear, high voice from behind the crowd.

"Little boy, you are not telling the truth."

William looked up into a thin, spectacled face.

"I wasn't tellin' it to you," he remarked, wholly unabashed.

A little girl with dark curls took up the cudgels quite needlessly in
William's defence.

"He's a very _brave_ boy to do all that," she said indignantly. "So
don't you go _saying_ things to him."

"Well," said William, flattered but modest, "I didn't say I did it,
did I? I said my uncle--well, partly my uncle."

Mr. Percival Jones looked down at him in righteous wrath.

"You're a very wicked little boy. I'll tell your father--er--I'll tell
your sister."

For Ethel was approaching in the distance and Mr. Percival Jones was
in no way loth to converse with her.

[Illustration: "YOU'RE A VERY WICKED LITTLE BOY!" SAID MR. PERCIVAL
JONES.]

Mr. Percival Jones was a thin, pale, aesthetic would-be poet who lived
and thrived on the admiration of the elderly ladies of his
boarding-house, and had done so for the past ten years. Once he had
published a volume of poems at his own expense. He lived at the same
boarding-house as the Browns, and had seen Ethel in the distance to
meals. He had admired the red lights in her dark hair and the blue
of her eyes, and had even gone so far as to wonder whether she
possessed the solid and enduring qualities which he would require of
one whom in his mind he referred to as his "future spouse."

He began to walk down the beach with her.

"I should like to speak to you--er--about your brother, Miss Brown,"
he began, "if you can spare me the time, of course. I trust I do not
er--intrude or presume. He is a charming little man but--er--I
fear--not veracious. May I accompany you a little on your way? I
am--er--much attracted to your--er--family. I--er--should like to know
you all better. I am--er--deeply attached to your--er--little brother,
but grieved to find that he does not--er--adhere to the truth in his
statements. I--er----"

Miss Brown's blue eyes were dancing with merriment.

"Oh, don't you worry about William," she said. "He's _awful_. It's
much best just to leave him alone. Isn't the sea gorgeous to-day?"

They walked along the sands.

Meanwhile William had invited his small defender into his hut.

"You can look round," he said graciously. "You've seen my skin what
I--he--killed, haven't you? This is my gun. You put