"Why not try No Man's Island?"
"Siren Rush told us it's a mere wilderness, 'long heath, brown furze,' and so on."
"Oh! That's quite wrong; he must know better than that. There's an excellent camping place on the narrower channel. We often picnicked there before my father quarrelled with Mr. P----"
Smiling, she caught herself up.
"Call 'em X and Y," suggested Pratt. "It is a sort of simultaneous equation, isn't it? But the island can't belong to Y unless Y is generally recognised in the neighbourhood as no man at all."
"Nobody knows whose it is. The owner died years ago; his cottage there is falling to ruin; they say it belongs now to a distant relative in the colonies."
"Then there's no one to chevy us away, as soon as we've got things shipshape?"
"Unless you're afraid of ghosts. There are all sorts of queer tales; the country folk shake their heads when the island is mentioned; not one of them will have the courage to set foot on it."
"A haunted island! How jolly! I've always wanted to meet a spook. That's an additional attraction, I assure you. Perhaps I can soothe the perturbed spirits with my banjo. I admit it has the opposite effect on Armstrong, but----"
The girl turned suddenly away towards Warrender, who had finished his job and was pumping up the tyre.