He strolled to the family automobile, produced an en-Tout-CAS pocket-handkerchief and set himself to polish the lamps with great assiduity.  The two gentlemen lingered at the turnstile for a moment or so to watch his proceedings.  “Modern child,” said Sir Richmond.  “Old stones are just old stones to him.  But motor cars are gods.”

“You can hardly expect him to understand—­at his age,” said the custodian, jealous for the honor of Stonehenge....

“Reminds me of Martin’s little girl,” said Sir Richmond, as he and Dr. Martineau went on towards the circle.  “When she encountered her first dragon-fly she was greatly delighted.  ‘Oh, dee’ lill’ a’eplane,’ she said.”

As they approached the grey old stones they became aware of a certain agitation among them.  A voice, an authoritative bass voice, was audible, crying, “Anthony!” A nurse appeared remotely going in the direction of the aeroplane sheds, and her cry of “Master Anthony” came faintly on the breeze.  An extremely pretty young woman of five or six and twenty became visible standing on one of the great prostrate stones in the centre of the place.  She was a black-haired, sun-burnt individual and she stood with her arms akimbo, quite frankly amused at the disappearance of Master Anthony, and offering no sort of help for his recovery.  On the greensward before her stood the paterfamilias of the family automobile, and he was making a trumpet with his hands in order to repeat the name of Anthony with greater effect.  A short lady in grey emerged from among the encircling megaliths, and one or two other feminine personalities produced effects of movement rather than of individuality as they flitted among the stones.  “Well,” said the lady in grey, with that rising intonation of humorous conclusion which is so distinctively American, “those Druids have got him.”

“He’s hiding,” said the automobilist, in a voice that promised chastisement to a hidden hearer.  “That’s what he is doing.  He ought not to play tricks like this.  A great boy who is almost six.”

“If you are looking for a small, resolute boy of six,” said Sir Richmond, addressing himself to the lady on the rock rather than to the angry parent below, “he’s perfectly safe and happy.  The Druids haven’t got him.  Indeed, they’ve failed altogether to get him.  ‘Stonehenge,’ he says, ‘is no good.’  So he’s gone back to clean the lamps of your car.”

“Aa-oo.  So that’s it!” said Papa.  “Winnie, go and tell Price he’s gone back to the car....  They oughtn’t to have let him out of the enclosure....”

The excitement about Master Anthony collapsed.  The rest of the people in the circles crystallized out into the central space as two apparent sisters and an apparent aunt and the nurse, who was packed off at once to supervise the lamp cleaning.  The head of the family found some difficulty, it would seem, in readjusting his mind to the comparative innocence of Anthony, and Sir Richmond and the young lady on the rock sought as if by common impulse to establish a general conversation.  There were faint traces of excitement in her manner, as though there had been some controversial passage between herself and the family gentleman.