"Down, Tim, down!" cried Tom, laughing delightedly, and caressing the little animal. "So you won't stay with the gipsies? Not likely! I didn't think you would, my boy!"
There were two ways back to Chilaton, one way across country by which Tom had come, the other by road, and the little boy chose to return by the latter. His conversation with Mrs. Lee had quite dismissed Peter Perry from his mind for the time, but as he neared Halcyon Villa his thoughts reverted to him.
He was close to the big iron gates when he heard voices in the garden within, and caught the words: "Yes, I know Bounce would not be likely to lead you into danger, but please don't go away from the house again without either myself or one of the servants is with you."
"Oh, all right, Aunt Harriet," Peter's voice answered submissively, "I didn't intend to have been away so long. I'll keep in the garden in future."
"Wants a nurse to look after him, evidently," Tom said to himself as he passed on, "and he's as old as I am, I should think! What a molly-coddle the fellow must be!"
[CHAPTER IV]
AN UNEXPECTED CALL
"WELL, as Peter Perry has said he didn't mean to insult you, I wouldn't think any more about it if I were you," said Nellie, after her brother had told her of his meeting in the lane with Peter: "about the shilling of course I mean. I dare say he's sorry enough he offered it to you now."
"Oh, yes, I'm sure he is that!" Tom answered. "He was sorry, I expect, as soon as I flung it back at him. But, Nellie, he must be a dreadful fraud, mustn't he?"
"A dreadful fraud?"