Percival caught Rollo's eye fixed in some horror on the wounds. "I cut them every day!" he said bigly, and shot a proud glance at the tadpole.
"Well, they're terrible. They must be washed. Bring him in, Maurice. We'll wash him, as we've nearly killed him, at the house."
"Yes, do! Yes, please do!" Rollo whispered, and his mother patted his hand, pleased at the animation of the thin little face.
Lord Burdon hesitated: "Take him to the Manor? Why, that may be miles from his home, you know."
"I suppose we can send him back in the trap, can't we?" Lady Burdon said, a trifle disagreeably. "You're a regular old woman, Maurice. Lift him in next to Rollo. You can see how Rollo takes to him, I should have thought."
"Didn't want to be had up for kidnapping, you know," Lord Burdon responded cheerfully. "Would be a bad start in the local opinion—eh?" And he laughed with the appeal and the apology with which he always met his wife's waves of impatience. "Shove up, Rollo! In you get, frog-hunter! Heavens! What a lump. All right. Drive on!"
"Gee up!" cried Percival, highly entertained, and chatted frankly with Lady Burdon as the wagonette bowled along. To her questions he was nearly eight, he told her; he would have another birthday in a short time; Honor gave him a sword at his last birthday and his Aunt Maggie gave him a trumpet. "You may blow my trumpet, if you like," turning to Rollo. "Honor says it is poison to blow it because I've broken the little white thing what you blow through. But I blow it all right."
Rollo flushed and smiled and put a thin little hand from beneath the rug and took Percival's muddy fist and held it for the remainder of the journey. Boy friends who did not laugh at him were new to him.
"Miss Oxford's little boy," Percival explained to further questions. "I live at the post-office, and we've got a drawer full of stamps with funny little holes what you tear off."
Lady Burdon turned to her husband: "Ah, I know now. You remember? You remember the vicar telling us about Miss Oxford when we first came down here? Well, she's to be congratulated on her nephew. I'm glad. He'll be the jolliest little companion for Rollo."