the farther away the kid seemed to get, till suddenly I found myself standing just behind him without quite knowing how I’d got there.
“Hallo!” I said, with a sickly sort of grin—wasted on the kid, because he didn’t bother to turn round and look at me. He merely wiggled his left ear in a rather peevish manner. I don’t know when I’ve met anybody in whose life I appeared to mean so little.
“Hallo!” I said. “Fishing?”
I laid my hand in a sort of elder-brotherly way on his shoulder.
“Here, look out!” said the kid, wobbling on his foundations.
It was one of those things that want doing quickly or not at all.
I shut my eyes and pushed. Something seemed to give.
There was a scrambling sound, a kind of yelp, a scream in the offing, and a splash.
And so the long day wore on, so to speak.
I opened my eyes. The kid was just coming to the surface.
“Help!” I shouted, cocking an eye on the bush from which young Bingo was scheduled to emerge.
Nothing happened. Young Bingo didn’t emerge to the slightest extent whatever.
“I say! Help!” I shouted again.
I don’t want to bore you with reminiscences of my theatrical career, but I must just touch once more on that appearance of mine as the butler. The scheme on that occasion had been that when I put the tray on the table the heroine would come on and say a few words to get me off. Well,