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You will expect me to describe the house and the furniture. I shall not, further than to say that it seemed to me to be of a piece with the fashion in which the boys were dressed; that is, it was like my idea of a good citizen's house in Queen Elizabeth's time; and I shall not describe Mrs. Wag's costume. She did not wear a ruff, anyhow.
But about that time I thought I must be getting on. As I strolled up the road I pondered over the message which Wag's father had been so good as to send me. "If they're about the house, give them horseshoes; if there's a bat-ball, squirt at it. I think there's a squirt in the tool-house." All very well, no doubt.
George produced from another pocket a bone which he had brought from Mrs. "Well," laughed Watson, in unconcern, "if Wag's to be drowned, he'll be drowned on a full stomach and that's one consolation." "He's the only critter among you as has got any sense," snarled the ferryman; "for he's the only one who didn't ask to be taken across this infarnal river!"
Like the infidel, they knew how to preface their acts by an intelligent deliberation, so that the device of Prince Boleslas of Pomerania, was always present to them: "First weigh it; then dare:" Erst wieg's: dann wag's!
"Ye'r a fine chap, Tom, to give a fellow h'infumation," he said with a snigger. "I could 'a told you as much meself. Why, carn't I see with 'arf a h'eye we're steerin' to the north'ard up the coast, with the munsoon a-blowin' right in our teeth and the sun on our starb'rd 'and!" I laughed, too, at the sharp wag's rejoinder.
And dismounting, he drew out from a pack-bag a long calico bag containing quite ten pounds of tea. "You struck the Wag's tin," he said, explaining the mistake, as every one shouted for Sam to boil a kettle instantly, and with the tea came a message from the Wag himself: "I'll trouble you for my raisins "; and we could almost hear the Wag's slow, dry chuckle underlying the words.
Slim remained sitting on a book and gazing soberly at me. "Well," I said, "it's very kind of Wag's father to send me a message, but I must say I can't make much of it." Slim nodded. "So he said, and he said you'd see when the time came; of course I don't know, myself; I've never seen a bat-ball. Wag says he has, but you never know with Wag."
They felt quite reassured when Sir Polgey Bobson, for instance, told them that there was no risk whatever three feet from the bedside of the patient. "And upwards, I presume?" said a Wag. But Sir Polgey did not see the Wag's point. He was one of your and other people's solemn men. Said Dr.
But we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance. And so on. All the rest is to show what sort of legislator a philanthropist is likely to make," ended the Rector, throwing down the paper, and clasping his hands at the back of his head, while he looked at Mr. Brooke with an air of amused neutrality.
However, there was loud laughter as they strolled, and it was noticed; and Fleetwood crying out, 'Mackrell! Mackrell! in delighted repudiation of the wag's last sally, the cry of 'Hooray, Mackrell ! was caught up by the crowd. They were not the primary offenders, for loud laughter in an isolated party is bad breeding; but they had not the plea of a copious dinner.
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