"He! Who! What!" shrieks Joyce, springing to her feet. A long acquaintance with Tommy has taught her to dread the worst.
"Oh, there! Of course you've knocked him down, and I did want to see how high he would go. I was tickling his tail to make him hurry up," says Tommy, in an aggrieved tone. "I can't see him anywhere now," peering about on the ground at her feet.
"Oh! What was it, Tommy? Do speak!" cries Joyce, in a frenzy of fear and disgust.
"'Twas an earwig!" says Tommy, lifting a seraphic face to hers. "And such a big one! He was racing up your dress most beautifully, and now you've upset him. Poor thing—I don't believe he'll ever find his way back to you again."
"I should hope not, indeed!" says Miss Kavanagh, hastily.
"He began at the very end of your frock," goes on Tommy, still searching diligently on the ground, as if to find the earwig, with a view to restoring it to its lost hunting ground; "and it wriggled up so nicely. I don't know where he is now"—sorrowfully—"unless," with a sudden brightening of his expressive face, "he is up your petticoats."
"Tommy! What a horrid, bad boy you are!" cries poor Joyce, wildly. She gives a frantic shake to the petticoats in question. "Find him at once, sir! He must be somewhere down there. I shan't have an instant's peace until I know where he is."
"I can't see him anywhere," says Tommy. "Maybe you'll feel him presently, and then we'll know. He isn't on your leg now, is he?"
"Oh! don't!" cries Joyce, who looks as if she is going, to cry. She gives herself another vigorous shake, and stands away from the spot where Tommy evidently thinks the noxious beast in question may be, with her petticoats held carefully up in both hands. "Oh, Tommy, darling! Do find him. He can't be up my petticoats, can he?"
"He can. There's, nothing they can't do," says Tommy, who is plainly revelling in the storm he has raised. Her open fright is beer and skittles to him. "Why did you stir? He was as good as gold, until then; and there wasn't anything to be afraid of. I was watching him. When he got to your ear I'd have told you. I wouldn't like him to make you deaf, but I wanted to see if he would go to your ear. But you spoiled all my fun, and now—where is he now?" asks Tommy, with an awful suggestion in his tone.