"Hadn't you better be getting back to breakfast?" said the girl.

"Not much," said I. "I don't run up against booths every day.

Besides--"

"Besides what?"

"Well, booth, I'm awfully curious."

"What do you want to know?"

"You're very good."

"I didn't say I'd tell you."

"I'll risk that. In a word, why are you?"

"Ah!"

I waited in silence for a few moments. At length:

"Suppose," she said slowly, "suppose a bet had been made."

"A bet?"

"A bet."

"Shocking! Go on."

"Well? Isn't that enough?"

"Nothing like."

"I don't think much of your imagination."

I raised my eyes to heaven. "A prophet is not without honour," I quoted.

"Is this your own country?"

"It is."

"Oh, I say, you'd be the very man!"

"I am," I said. "Refuse subst.i.tutes."

It gradually appeared that, in a rash moment, she had made some silly wager that she could give a Punch and Judy show on her own in the village of Lynn Hammer and the vicinity. Of course, she had not meant it. She had spoken quite idly, secure in the very impracticability of the thing. But certain evil-disposed persons--referred to mysteriously as 'they'--had fastened greedily upon her words, and, waving aside her objection that she had no paraphernalia, deliberately proceeded to provide the same, that she might have no excuse. The booth was run up, the puppets procured. The gentle hint that she wanted to withdraw had been let fall at the exact moment with deadly effect, and--the wicked work was done. She had been motored over and here set down, complete with booth, half an hour ago. They were going to look back later, just to see how she was getting on. The ordeal was to be over and the wager won by six o'clock, and she might have the a.s.sistance of a native in her whimsical venture.

"Right up to the last I believe the brutes thought I would cry off,"

she said. "I very nearly did, too, when it came to it. Only I saw Peter smiling. It is rather a hopeless position, isn't it?"

"It was. But now that you've got your native--"

"Oh!" she said. Then: "But I've got one."

"Where?"

"He's getting the milk."

"I don't believe he is. Anyway, you can discharge him and take me on.

I've been out of work for years. Besides, you've been sent. In your advent I descry the finger of Providence."

"I wish I did. What do you mean?"

"This day," I said, "I am perforce a zealot."

"A what?"

"A zealot--a Banana zealot. You, too, shall be a zealot. We will unite our zeal, and this day light such a candle--"

"The man's mad," she said. "Quite mad."

I explained. "You see," I said, "it's like this. Simply miles away, somewhere south south and by south of us, there are a lot of heathen.

They're called Bananas. I don't know very much about it, but there seems to be a sort of understanding that we should keep them in missionaries. So every now and then the 'worker' push here get up a fete thing and take money off people. Then they find one and send him out. Well, there's one of these stunts on this afternoon, and I've been let in to do something. That's why I look so pale and interesting. The last day or two I've been desperate about it. But now..."

"Now what?"

"If you'd let me help you to-day, we could take the show to the fete and simply rake it in. It's a splendid way of winning your bet, too.

Oh, booth, isn't it obvious that you've been sent?"

"It certainly would be nicer than giving performances about the village," she said musingly. "If only I knew you--"

"You don't know the fellow who isn't getting the milk," I objected.

"That's different. He'd be only a servant."

"I would be the same."

There was a pause. A rabbit loped into the road and blinked curiously at the booth. Then he saw me and beat a hasty retreat.

"It is in a good cause," I urged. "You don't know the Bananas; they're absurdly--er--straight."

"It's all very well for you," she said; "you know everybody here. But it would be an impossible position for me; I don't know a soul. Now, if we were both strangers--"

"Well?"

"Well, then they wouldn't worry as to who we were and what we had to do with one another."

"Then let's both be strangers."

"How can you be strange to order?"