Presently the nurse captured the boat, and the small boy stood at bay.

“Monsieur René, when you decide to come here you may have your boat.”

The boy backed away scowling.

“Give me my boat, I say,” he cried, “and don’t call me René, for my name’s Randall and you know it!”

“Hello!” said Hastings⁠—“Randall?⁠—that’s English.”

“I am American,” announced the boy in perfectly good English, turning to look at Hastings, “and she’s such a fool she calls me René because mamma calls me Ranny⁠—”

Here he dodged the exasperated nurse and took up his station behind Hastings, who laughed, and catching him around the waist lifted him into his lap.

“One of my countrymen,” he said to the girl beside him. He smiled while he spoke, but there was a queer feeling in his throat.