“But ’e’s nearer the sun than wot we are, ain’t ’e?”

“Ah, but ’e’s not ’ot.  Not up there.”

“’Ere, there ’e is,” cried Myra, jumping up excitedly.  “Over there.  ’Ow naow, it’s a bird.  I declare I quite thought it was ’im.  Silly of me.”

There was silence for a little, and then Archie took a sandwich out of his pocket.

“Wunner wot they’ll invent next,” he said, and munched stolidly.

. . . . . . .

“Well done,” said Dahlia.

“Thomas and I have been trying to guess,” said Simpson, “but the strain is terrific.  My first idea was ‘codfish,’ but I suppose that’s wrong.  It’s either ‘silkworm’ or ‘wardrobe.’  Thomas suggests ‘mangel-wurzel.’  He says he never saw anybody who had so much the whole air of a wurzel as Archie.  The indefinable elan of the wurzel was there.”

“Can’t you really guess?” said Myra eagerly.

“I don’t know whether I want you to or not.  Oh no, I don’t want you to.”

“Then I withdraw ‘mangel-wurzel,’” said Simpson gallantly.

“I think I can guess,” said Blair.  “It’s—­”

“Whisper it,” said Simpson.  “I’m never going to know.”

Blair whispered it.

“Yes,” said Myra disappointedly, “that’s it.”

V.—­UNINVITED GUESTS

“Nine,” said Archie, separating his latest victim from the marmalade spoon and dropping it into the hot water.  “This is going to be a sanguinary day.  With a pretty late cut into the peach jelly Mr A. Mannering reached double figures.  Ten.  Battles are being won while Thomas still sleeps.  Any advance on ten?”

“Does that include my wasp?” asked Myra.

“There are only ten here,” said Archie, looking into the basin, “and they’re all mine.  I remember them perfectly.  What was yours like?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly kill him.  I smacked him with a teaspoon and asked him to go away.  And he went on to your marmalade, so I expect you thought he was yours.  But it was really mine, and I don’t think it’s very sporting of you to kill another person’s wasp.”

“Have one of mine,” I said, pushing my plate across.  “Have Bernard—­he’s sitting on the green-gage.”

“I don’t really want to kill anything.  I killed a rabbit once and I wished I hadn’t.”

“I nearly killed a rabbit once, and I wished I had.”

“Great sportsmen at a glance,” said Archie.  “Tell us about it before it goes into your reminiscences.”

“It was a fierce affair while it lasted.  The rabbit was sitting down and I was standing up, so that I rather had the advantage of him at the start.  I waited till he seemed to be asleep and then fired.”

“And missed him?”

“Y-yes.  He heard the report, though.  I mean, you mustn’t think he ignored me altogether.  I moved him.  He got up and went away all right.”

“A very lucky escape for you,” said Archie.  “I once knew a man who was gored to death by an angry rabbit.”  He slashed in the air with his napkin.  “Fifteen.  Dahlia, let’s have breakfast indoors to-morrow.  This is very jolly but it’s just as hot, and it doesn’t get Thomas up any earlier, as we hoped.”