Miss beech. [Sidling round the tree.] Oh! dear!

Joy. [Whispering.] She’s been letting out your worms. [Miss beech disappears from view.] Look!

Dick. [Quickly.] Hang the worms!  Joy, promise me the second and fourth and sixth and eighth and tenth and supper, to-night.  Promise!  Do!

     [Joy shakes her head.]

It’s not much to ask.

Joy.  I won’t promise anything.

Dick.  Why not?

Joy.  Because Mother’s coming.  I won’t make any arrangements.

Dick. [Tragically.] It’s our last night.

Joy. [Scornfully.] You don’t understand! [Dancing and clasping her hands.] Mother’s coming, Mother’s coming!

Dick. [Violently.] I wish——­Promise, Joy!

Joy. [Looking over her shoulder.] Sly old thing!  If you’ll pay
Peachey out, I’ll promise you supper!

Miss beech. [From behind the tree.] I hear you.

Joy. [Whispering.] Pay her out, pay her out!  She’s let out all your worms!

Dick. [Looking moodily at the paint pot.] I say, is it true that Maurice Lever’s coming with your mother?  I’ve met him playing cricket, he’s rather a good sort.

Joy. [Flashing out.] I hate him.

Dick. [Troubled.] Do you?  Why?  I thought—­I didn’t know—­if I’d known of course, I’d have——­

     [He is going to say “hated him too!” But the voices of Ernest
     Blunt and the Colonel are heard approaching, in dispute.]

Joy.  Oh!  Dick, hide me, I don’t want my hair seen till Mother comes.

     [She springs into the hollow tree.  The Colonel and Ernest
     appear in the opening of the wall.]

Ernest. The ball was out, Colonel.

Colonel.  Nothing of the sort.

Ernest. A good foot out.

Colonel.  It was not, sir.  I saw the chalk fly.

     [Ernest is twenty-eight, with a little moustache, and the
     positive cool voice of a young man who knows that he knows
     everything.  He is perfectly calm.]

Ernest. I was nearer to it than you.

Colonel. [In a high, hot voice.] I don’t care where you were, I hate a fellow who can’t keep cool.

Miss beech. [From behind the hollow tree.] Fie!  Fie!

Ernest. We’re two to one, Letty says the ball was out.

Colonel.  Letty’s your wife, she’d say anything.

Ernest. Well, look here, Colonel, I’ll show you the very place it pitched.

Colonel.  Gammon!  You’ve lost your temper, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Ernest. [coolly.] I suppose you’ll admit the rule that one umpires one’s own court.