t that rifle, little boy?" he asked in a voice he
strove to make playful. "Is it--ah--is it loaded? It's--ah--unwise,
little boy. Most unwise. Er--give it to me to--er--take care of.
It--er--might go off, you know."

William moved the muzzle of his weapon, and Mr. Percival Jones
shuddered from head to foot. William was a brave boy, but he had
experienced a moment of cold terror when first he had approached his
captive. The first note of the quavering high-pitched voice had,
however, reassured him. He instantly knew himself to be the better
man. His captive's obvious terror of his pop-gun almost persuaded him
that he held in his hand some formidable death-dealing instrument. As
a matter of fact Mr. Percival Jones was temperamentally an abject
coward.

"You walk up to the seats," commanded William. "I've took you prisoner
for smugglin' an'--an'--jus' walk up to the seats."

Mr. Percival Jones obeyed with alacrity.

"Don't--er--_press_ anything, little boy," he pleaded as he went.
"It--ah--might go off by accident. You might do--ah--untold damage."

Peggy, armed with the wastepaper basket and the skin, followed
open-mouthed.

At the seat William paused.

"Peggy, you put the basket over his head an' pin his arms down--case
he struggles, an' tie the skin wot I shot round him, case he
struggles."

Peggy stood upon the seat and obeyed. Their victim made no protest. He
seemed to himself to be in some horrible dream. The only thing of
which he was conscious was the dimly descried weapon that William held
out at him in the darkness. He was hardly aware of the wastepaper
basket thrust over his head. He watched William anxiously through the
basket-work.

"Be careful," he murmured. "Be careful, boy!"

He hardly felt the skin which was fastened tightly round his
unresisting form by Peggy, the tail tied to one front paw.
Unconsciously he still clasped a bottle of brandy in each arm.

Then came the irate summons of Peggy's nurse through the dusk.

"Oh, William," she said panting with excitement, "I don't want to
leave you. Oh, William, he might _kill_ you!"

"You go on. I'm all right," he said with conscious valour. "He can't
do nothin' 'cause I've got a gun an' I can shoot him dead,"--Mr.
Percival Jones shuddered afresh,--"an' he's all tied up an' I've took
him prisoner an' I'm goin' to take him home."

"Oh, William, you are brave!" she whispered in the darkness as she
flitted away to her nurse.

William blushed w