“Whatever did you do it for?” Mavis asked crossly. “It was horrid of you.”
“It wasn’t only just a lark,” said the boy. “I cut around and listened this afternoon when you was jawing, and I thought why not be in it? Only I do sleep that heavy, what with the riding and the tumbling and all. So I didn’t wake till you’d got her out and then I cut up along ahind the hedge to be beforehand with you. An’ I was. It was a fair cop, matey, eh?”
“What are you going to do about it?” Francis asked flatly; “tell your father?” But Mavis reflected that he didn’t seem to have told his father yet, and perhaps wouldn’t.
“Ain’t got no father,” said the Spangled Boy, “nor yet mother.”
“If you are rested enough you’d better go on,” said the Mermaid. “I’m getting dry through.”
And Mavis understood that to her that was as bad as getting wet through would be to us.
“I’m so sorry,” she said gently, “but—”
“I must say I think it’s very inconsiderate of you to keep me all this time in the dry,” the Mermaid went on. “I really should have thought that even you—”
But Francis interrupted her.