'Yes; when my little girl was ailing you brought her a lot of pears off your own tree. Not one of 'em you didn't 'ave yourself that year, Miss Helen told me. And you brought back our kitten—the sandy and white one with black spots—when it strayed. So I was quite willing to come and meet you when so told. And knowing something of young gentlemen's peckers, owing to being in business once next door to a boys' school, I made so bold as to bring you a snack.'
He reached a hand down behind the fallen pillar on which they sat and brought up a basket.
'Here,' he said. And Philip, raising the lid, was delighted to find that he was hungry. It was a pleasant basketful. Meat pasties, red hairy gooseberries, a stone bottle of ginger-beer, a blue mug with Philip on it in gold letters, a slice of soda cake and two farthing sugar-sticks.
'I'm sure I've seen that basket before,' said the boy as he ate.
'Like enough. It's the one you brought them pears down in.'
'Now look here,' said Philip, through his seventh bite of pasty, 'you must tell me how you got here. And tell me where you've got to. You've simply no idea how muddling it all is to me. Do tell me everything. Where are we, I mean, and why? And what I've got to do. And why? And when? Tell me every single thing.' And he took the eighth bite.
'You really don't know, sir?'
'No,' said Philip, contemplating the ninth or last bite but one. It was a large pasty.
'Well then. Here goes. But I was always a poor speaker, and so considered even by friends at cricket dinners and what not.'
'But I don't want you to speak,' said Philip; 'just tell me.'