"You ought to have stopped when your paper came to an end, and come back to her. How could she follow you, especially when you drove in a cart? It wasn't fair."
"It was that old brute's fault. He nearly broke his stick over my shoulders. I'll pay him back when I get a chance. I've got the marks now. I can feel them. I couldn't walk home, I was so hurt. So I told Mike to drive me into Thornton, and then I was going to our butcher, I knew he would take me home."
"That was rather clever of you," admitted Jill, "but did you forget all about Bumps?"
"Oh, I knew she would never come on so far. If you'd been with her it would have been all right. And I thought you were. I told her to bring you; so it was really all your fault."
This was turning the tables upon Jill.
"I suppose," she said slowly, "I ought to have looked after her."
But Bumps breathlessly protested:
"I wath all right. I runned ever so fatht. And I thaw the paper, and never wath frightened of the cowth, and I would have catched him, Jill, I really would, only I couldn't get over the palings, and my legs thtuck where they oughtn't to, and then I tumbled on my head and—and——"
Bumps came to a stop; then she added piteously, "I'll do better next time, Jack. I really will."
And Jack replied with a patronising air. "Oh yes, you'll do, when you grow bigger."