He hardly expected any reply but the astonished “Caw!” of the crow, who sat upon a fence watching him with gloomy interest, and when a cheerful “Hullo, there!” sounded from the lane, he was so grateful that tears of joy rolled down his fat cheeks.

“Come on!  I’m in the ma’sh.  Lend a hand and get me out!” bawled Sam, anxiously waiting for his deliverer to appear, for he could only see a hat bobbing along behind the hazel-bushes that fringed the lane.

Steps crashed through the bushes, and then over the wall came an active figure, at the sight of which Sam was almost ready to dive out of sight, for, of all possible boys, who should it be but Ben, the last person in the world whom he would like to have see him in his present pitiful plight.

“Is it you, Sam?  Well, you are in a nice fix!” and Ben’s eyes began to twinkle with mischievous merriment, as well they might, for Sam certainly was a spectacle to convulse the soberest person.  Perched unsteadily on the gnarled stump, with his muddy legs drawn up, his dismal face splashed with mud, and the whole lower half of his body as black as if he had been dipped in an inkstand, he presented such a comically doleful object that Ben danced about, laughing like a naughty will-o’-the-wisp who, having led a traveler astray, then fell to jeering at him.

“Stop that or I’ll knock your head off,” roared Sam, in a rage.

“Come on and do it, I give you leave,” answered Ben, sparring away derisively as the other tottered on his perch and was forced to hold tight lest he should tumble off.

“Don’t laugh, there’s a good chap, but fish me out somehow or I shall get my death sitting here all wet and cold,” whined Sam, changing his tone, and feeling bitterly that Ben had the upper hand now.

Ben felt it also, and though a very good natured boy, could not resist the temptation to enjoy this advantage for a moment at least.

“I wont laugh if I can help it, only you do look so like a fat, speckled frog I may not be able to hold in.  I’ll pull you out pretty soon, but first I’m going to talk to you, Sam,” said Ben, sobering down as he took a seat on the little point of land nearest the stranded Samuel.

“Hurry up, then; I’m as stiff as a board now, and it’s no fun sitting here on this knotty old thing,” growled Sam, with a discontented squirm.

“Dare say not, but ‘it is good for you,’ as you say when you rap me over the head.  Look here, I’ve got you in a tight place, and I don’t mean to help you a bit till you promise to let me alone.  Now then!” and Ben’s face grew stern with his remembered wrongs as he grimly eyed his discomfited foe.

“I’ll promise fast enough if you wont tell any one about this,” answered Sam, surveying himself and his surroundings with great disgust.

“I shall do as I like about that.”

“Then I wont promise a thing!  I’m not going to have the whole school laughing at me,” protested Sam, who hated to be ridiculed even more than Ben did.