The boy hesitated and glanced rather uneasily at his host.

“ ’Tisn’t that I haven’t seen him,” he murmured obscurely. “If you must know,” he burst out, “ ’twas when I asked he to come to Grassy Mound, out Henchford way, where the girls do enjoy theyselves, rolling down thik bank. And do ’ee know what he said to I?” Lobbie fixed a portentously dramatic look upon his hearer, the undissolved peppermint in his cheek increasing rather than diminishing its impressiveness. “He said there weren’t no pleasure in ’em! ’Twas upsetting to a person to hear him; but that’s what he said⁠ ⁠… ‘no pleasure in ’em’⁠ ⁠… meaning, you know what !”

“Your friend is in love with our Gerda, I’m afraid,” said Wolf coldly.

“ ’Tisn’t Adultery, be it,” enquired Lobbie, “for he to carry on so about another man’s wife?”