"Oh, he's not in Burke," Ronnie declared positively. "He's in Scotland; he's wrote to me from there."
"All right," said the man. "I'll try and get the letter to him somehow. But you mustn't expect too much. It may not be over-easy for Uncle Gerald to do anything, and it takes a deuce of a time for letters to get to Scotland."
"Longer than to Burke?"
"Hark!" said the man. "Isn't that some one calling?"
"It's for me," exclaimed Ronnie, jumping off his knee. "I expect it's time to go to dinner. You won't forget? You do promise? You won't tell them?" For he saw Miss Biddle and Cedric and Githa arrive breathlessly at the top of the slope.
"Honest Injun," said the man. "But it'll take a good week. Then you'll hear something, if Uncle Gerald's the man I take him for."
They shook hands. Miss Biddle and his cousins were quite close, and he turned to meet them. Their questions and reproaches passed over his head lightly. He didn't care. He had done something at last, and he believed in the likhnè-wālā.
"How long is a week?" he asked, when the enormity of his conduct had been thoroughly threshed out.
"Seven days, of course. You are an ignorant little boy," said Githa.
* * * * *