“Hullo! what are you doing there?” shouted the vicar, quickening his pace. “Don’t hurt the poor dog!”
To his intense astonishment the boy on the floating substance turned his face towards him, answering his hail promptly with an explanation.
“It’s Puck, padie, and I ain’t hurting him.”
Both the face and the voice were Teddy’s!
The vicar was completely astounded.
“Teddy!” he exclaimed, “can I believe my eyes?—is it really you?”
“Yes, it’s me, padie,” replied the young scapegrace, trying to balance himself upright on the unsteady platform as he faced his father, but not succeeding in doing so very gracefully.
“Why, how on earth—or rather water, that would be the most correct expression,” said the vicar correcting himself, being a student of Paley and a keen logician as to phraseology; “how did you get there?”
“I made a raft,” explained Teddy in short broken sentences, which were interrupted at intervals through the necessary exertion he had to make every now and then to keep from tumbling into the water and hold Puck. “I made a raft like—like Robinson Crusoe, and—and—I’ve brought Puck—uck with me, ’cause I didn’t have a parrot or a cat. I—I—I wanted to get to the island; b–b–but I can’t go any further as the raft is stuck, and—and I’ve lost my stick to push it with. Oh—I was nearly over there!”
“It would be a wholesome lesson to you if you got a good ducking!” said the vicar sternly, albeit the reminiscences of Robinson Crusoe and the fact of Teddy endeavouring to imitate that ideal hero of boyhood struck him in a comical light and he turned away to hide a smile. “Come to the bank at once, sir!”