“Don’t you think,” I said, “that it would be very much nicer—­for Philip—­if he were allowed to forage for himself?  We had a bullfinch once who spent his days in the garden and always came back to the cage at night.”

This apposite though untrue anecdote obviously impressed the lady, but she decided that Philip was too precious to be made the subject of experiment.  The transport-workers then returned to their labours, under protest.

However, a day or two later Fate played into our hands.  Miss Ropes herself inadvertently left the cage door open, and Philip escaped.  The entire establishment devoted the day to his pursuit, without success; but in the evening the truant, dissipated and distended, lurched into his cage of his own accord and went instantly to sleep.

Encouraged by his return and by the regular habits of my hypothetical bullfinch, Miss Ropes let him out again next day.  This time he did not come back.

“Probably he’s sleeping it off somewhere,” said Haynes cheerfully.  “He’ll be back to-morrow.”

However he wasn’t.  Miss Ropes had his description posted up in the village, and next day a telephone message informed us that a suspicious red-headed character answering to the specification was loitering near the “Waggon and Horses,” and was being kept under observation.  Miss Ropes and Haynes went off to arrest him, but hardly had they disappeared down the drive when Philip in person appeared on the lawn.

This gave our handy man, James, his chance.  James simply loves to make himself useful.  If anybody wants anything done he can always rely on James to do it by a more complicated method and with more trouble to himself than the ordinary man could conceive.  His education is generally understood to have consisted of an exhaustive study of the “How-To-Make” column in the Boys’ Own Paper, completed by a short course of domestic engineering under Mr. W. HEATH ROBINSON.

We first knew that he had undertaken the case when we heard his voice excitedly telling us not to move.  Naturally we all turned to look at him.  He had got a butterfly net from somewhere and was lying flat on his tummy and whistling seductively an alleged imitation of Philip’s usual remark.  Philip, about thirty yards away, was eyeing him with contempt.

Suddenly James gathered his limbs beneath him, sprang up, galloped ten yards and flung himself down again, panting loudly.  Philip, surprised and alarmed, took refuge in a tree, whereupon James abandoned the stalk (blaming us for having frightened Philip away) and retired to think of another scheme.

Soon he reappeared with some pieces of bamboo and a square yard of white calico, sat down solemnly in the verandah and began to sew.

“Is it a white flag?  Are you going to parley with him, or what?” asked Ansell.

“Trap,” replied James shortly.

We watched with silent interest while he got more and more entangled in his contrivance.