“You look as if you had been having a quarrel,” he said. “What’s happened?”
“Edward, please give that fellow a good flogging,” called Clarence from the lake where he stood waist-deep in water. “You can do it, I know. I found that out the other day.”
But Edward l’Estrange was in no humor to be bothered.
“You touch me and you go where your cousin did,” he said, feeling equal at that moment to exterminating the line of Paxton-Steeles, root, branch and stock.
“Is that old Clarence out there in the water,” said Edward Paxton chuckling. “By Jove, but that’s funny. You look like ‘the bullfrog on the bank and the pollywog in the pool.’”
Billie laughed outright at this because it was funny—Edward crouched on the bank with a black look on his face, like an angry bullfrog, and pollywog Clarence wading about in the water afraid to come out!
At that moment there was a sound of shouting and laughing and a crowd of boys and girls came running from the piazza into the garden. They were chasing Timothy Peppercorn, who was racing down the path in front of the others. It was only a child’s game they were playing, but there are always some big children ranging anywhere from fifteen to fifty who love to play games, and the biggest child at Mr. Duffy’s party that night was Mr. Duffy himself. He resembled a jolly fat old satyr with a crowd of pretty wood nymphs around him as he ran puffing and blowing through the palm-bordered walks.
It was Nancy, fleetest nymph of them all, who was the first to catch Timothy by the tail of his coat and hold him fast until the others came up, and it was on the bank of the lake she had caught him, not two feet from where Edward l’Estrange was sitting embracing his knees, in moody silence.
Just as the others came up, a row-boat shot from round the boat-house and pulled into shore.
“Is this Marse Duffy’s res-dence?” some one called from the boat.