“Plague take it,” cried the startled lad; “what do you mean by scaring a fellow out of his boots?”
“That’s just what a jolly old bird over there in the bushes did to me,” said Billy; “I thought he was sounding a ‘Charge of the Light Brigade,’ with no less terrible result than when Bill Williams used to recite it on exhibition days at Brixton school.”
“What are you fellows chattering about?” This from Canby, rising from his mossy bed.
“Another county heard from,” announced the Bangor boy; “we were discussing, sir,” he went on, “whether the clothes you are occupying were tailored just before or just after the Byzantine period.”
“Hold hard there,” put in Macauley; “‘spare that tree, woodman,’ it’s a fine old oak, no matter how rough its coat.”
Canby, beginning to fear that “Mustapha” was going to be late with the breakfast, broke away from the wordy exchange to take a look through the orchard, in the hope of meeting the incoming provider.
He soon returned in triumph, drilling the grinning black in drum-major style, waving an olive branch for a baton.
“Most illustrious purveyor, thou art most doubly welcome,” declared Macauley, as “Mustapha” shifted the load from his head to the ground.
The disappearance of the breakfast marked the appearance of the patriarch, who was accompanied by a husky pair of natives, each with a balancing pole across the shoulders, double-ended with buckets of brass.
“Of that for which you most wished I have it here in gallons,” stated the graybeard, “and with blessing on its use.”