"Eh?" I said, blankly, for I had not caught the phrase.

"We are a lot of duffers!" muttered Mac. "The man is a sailor and he's at sea."

"Oh!" I said, and for a moment I felt downcast at the tame ending of our investigation. "When is he coming home, Beppo?"

"I dunno," he answered, indifferently. "What do you want to know for?"

Here was a quandary. I was caught fairly and squarely prying into another person's business. I don't know why, but these two little chaps, with their clean-cut unembarra.s.sed features, their relentless stare and their matter-of-fact outlook upon life, seemed to have in a supreme degree the faculty of inspiring and snubbing curiosity. I think the others, since I had borne the brunt of the ordeal, sympathized with me, for they were silent. I stared at our visitors in some perplexity; and then in the most exasperating manner they turned away and ran across our ground to a huge hollow stump near the forest path and began to play.

"Pretty tough, eh?" murmured Mac, rocking himself. I began to wonder whether I ought to have been more indignant about that reflection upon my height. Bill looked up and twisted round so that she could see what they were doing.

"What are they playing?" she whispered. No one answered. I was thinking.

Sailor--sixty dollars a month rent--Italian wife--letters from New York.

"I will see," I said, and stepping down I walked across to the stump.

I was fully resolved to sift the matter as far as I could to the bottom.

I was aware of the disadvantage of being a small man, for I saw that I should be compelled to climb up to look into the stump. But with small stature is often joined a certain tenacious, terrier-like fort.i.tude. I advanced with firmness.

Ben was nowhere to be seen. Beppo, a stick on his shoulder, stood in a statuesque pose in front of the stump.

"G'way!" he hissed, as I came up.

"What's the game?" I whispered.

"Indians. I'm on guard. G'way!" he whispered back.

"Is this the fort?" I searched for a foothold.

"Yep. This is the middle-watch. What'd you b.u.t.t in for?"

I scrambled up and looked. Just below me, lying on a soft bed of mouldering tinder wood and leaves, was Benvenuto Cellini Carville, simulating profound slumber. As I clung there, a somewhat undignified figure, he opened one eye.

"Let me play too?" I pleaded.

"Can you follow a trail?" said Beppo's voice at my side.

"Sure."

"Well, you go down there," he pointed to Bill's cabbage patch, "and be a hostile, see?"

I saw. As I slipped down and hastened away as directed (avoiding the cabbages), it seemed to me absurdly paradoxical that the only way to be friendly with these precocious beings was to be a "hostile." I looked round. Beppo stood at rigid attention, and at the studio back window I saw two grinning heads surveying my performance. I was not at all clear in my mind how a hostile should act; it was thirty years since I had read "Deerslayer." Should I drop on my knees and crawl through the long gra.s.s, snooping round the beanpoles and taking the devoted block-house in flank? I swallowed my stiff-necked English pride and began to crawl.

Then I saw a better plan. I slipped through the spa.r.s.e line of dwarf oaks smothered with crimson poison-ivy that bordered the forest path and crept as silently as I could towards the street until I was abreast of the stump. As I paused Beppo was making his round of the fort and espied me. Instantly crying "Hostiles!" he presented his stick, banged, reloaded, banged again, reloaded and banged yet again. I took up a stick and presented it--bang! With amazing verisimilitude Beppo rolled over--shot through the heart. Really, for a moment I had a mad apprehension that in some occult way, some freak of hypnotic suggestion, I had actually wrought the child harm. I stood there breathlessly triumphant and wondering whether it was now my business to rush in and scalp the defenceless prisoners. I became aware of a head and a stick above the stump.

"Bang!" said the garrison. Obviously I was shot. I fell, desperately wounded, and endeavoured to drag myself away into the forest of dwarf oaks, when the garrison hailed me.

"Surrender!" he called, presenting his piece. I put up my hands. He climbed down nimbly.

"Now you help me bring in the dead and wounded," he ordered, and together we, the victorious garrison, dragged the slain warrior into the shadow of the stump. All at once he became alive, jumped up and danced gleefully.

"Say, that's bully!" he chanted. "You play some Indian!"

I looked down modestly and blushed I fear, for I knew that the grinning heads were still at the studio window.

"Well," I said, picking the thistle burrs off my trousers, "let us sit down for a spell, shall we?" To my surprise, they consented. We went round to the stoop and I took a big rocker. For a moment they stared, as though considering me in the new light of a perfect "hostile."

"Say," began Beppo, "what you doin' in there?" and he pointed to the house.

"What do you want to know for?" I retorted, humorously, stroking his dark head. I am fond of children in a way, especially boys. He twisted his head away, but without ill-temper, and looked at me gravely.

"Don't you work?" he demanded.

"A little, sometimes," I replied earnestly, feeling for my cigarettes.

"What sort of work?" said Benvenuto, standing in front of me.

"We make pictures," I said, evasively. I have a silly reluctance to talk of literature as work.

"Huh!" they remarked, and surveyed me afresh.

"What does your father work at?" I asked, cautiously.

"He's at sea," said Beppo.

And that was all they knew. I tried the question in many ways, but they had no other answer. Evidently they had grown up with that phrase in their ears, "at sea," and were satisfied.

"Don't you want to see him?" I suggested. They "supposed so." I left that subject.

"How old are you?"

"Seven," said Beppo. "Ben's six."

"You are very precocious," I remarked, to myself chiefly.

"How?"

"Precocious," I repeated, rising to meet the postman. He handed me several business letters and one for Bill with an English stamp, a fat package.

"Who's that from?" asked Beppo, and I was pulling his ear gently as Bill came out with a rush. The postman went along to the next house.

At this moment my perceptions became blurred. I remember handing the letters to Bill and Mac. I remember the quick scuffle of the two children as they hastened toward their own home. All this is blurred.

What stands out sharply in my memory is the figure of Mrs. Carville, her waist pressed hard against the fence, a long envelope in her hand, gesticulating to the children as they went towards her. I saw her wave them peremptorily indoors and then remain by the fence, regarding me with profound distrust. I made a step forward to speak, for I should have had to shout at that distance, but she turned and swung up the steps of her porch and slammed the door.

"A letter from Cecil," said Bill as I took my seat, a little downcast at the encounter. Cecil is the painter-cousin, at Wigborough, Ess.e.x, England.

"What does he say?" I inquired.

"Read it to us," said she, and handed me a dozen sheets of tracing paper pinned together.