“Be careful!” yipped the Right Hon.
I was.
Whoever built the Octagon might have constructed it especially for this sort of crisis. Its walls had grooves at regular intervals which were just right for the hands and feet, and it wasn’t very long before I was parked up on the roof beside the Right Hon. , gazing down at one of the largest and shortest-tempered swans I had ever seen. It was standing below, stretching up a neck like a hosepipe, just where a bit of brick, judiciously bunged, would catch it amidships.
I bunged the brick and scored a bull’s-eye.
The Right Hon. didn’t seem any too well pleased.
“Don’t tease it!” he said.
“It teased me,” I said.
The swan extended another eight feet of neck and gave an imitation of steam escaping from a leaky pipe. The rain continued to lash down with what you might call indescribable fury, and I was sorry that in the agitation inseparable from shinning up a stone wall at practically a second’s notice I had dropped the raincoat which I had been bringing with me for my fellow-rooster.
For a moment I thought of offering him mine, but wiser counsels prevailed.
“How near did it come to getting you?” I asked.
“Within an ace,” replied my companion, gazing down with a look of marked dislike. “I had