“Come along, boys,” said Harry, who was bellows-bearer; and away they scudded till they reached the wooden bridge over the ditch, and then they stood together beneath the trees.
Puff, puff. Yes, the brimstone was all right, and now for the wasps.
“Let me do it,” said Philip, catching at the bellows.
“No, no; I’ll do it,” said Harry, putting them behind his back.
“Now, Harry, you know I’m older than you, and you carried them here, so you ought to give way,” said Philip.
“Why,” said Harry, “we ought neither of us to do it, because Cousin Fred’s here, and he’s a visitor. Here, Fred,” he said, holding out the bellows, “you do it.”
“Do what?” said Fred, staring. “I don’t know what you are going to do.”
“Why, take the wasps’ nest in that old touchwood tree. You’re only got to put the nose of the bellows into the hole where they are going in and out, and blew, and then keep them tight there till all the wasps are dead.”
Fred looked at the bellows, then at his cousins, then at the hole in the fallen trunk where the wasps were flying about; and after giving a puff with the bellows, when smoke issued from the nozzle, he slowly approached the hole, and stooped over it to insert the death-dealing instrument.
“Buzz—booz—whooz—ooz—ooz—ooz,” said a couple of wasps, coming home in a hurry, and circling round Fred’s head so very closely that the boy shut his eyes, and, stooping down very low, backed away crab fashion as fast as ever he could.