Edmund's voice was very piteous.
"Poor mites," said the tiger-man. "I'll tell you what we'll do. You go down to the bottom of the garden under the trees and wait for me for five minutes. Then I'll come to you and we'll do something—it mustn't be noisy—but we'll make some sort of a play. Just let me have five minutes with Mr. Wycherly here—see, there's my watch—when the five minutes are up you give me a call."
As he spoke he took off his watch and chain and gave it to Montagu. The little boys ran to the end of the garden and waited by the wall.
"He must have climbed over," Edmund said. "I suppose it isn't very high when your legs are so long."
"Edmund," said Montagu very seriously, "I don't think we ought to bother him to play. He looks very sorry. You see, his mother's just dead—perhaps he doesn't feel at all like playing. You see, before, when we had that lovely game, he was just going to see her—now——"
Edmund's face fell. The tiger-man's advent had seemed a direct interposition of Providence on his behalf. Now, it appeared that he was not to avail himself of it after all.
"Sha'n't you call him when it's the five minutes?" he asked.
"No," said Montagu, "it would be kinder not, don't you think?"
Edmund's mouth went down at the corners. "It's been so mizzable all day," he sighed. "Aunt Esperance is sorry, and Guardie is sorry, and now you're sorry, and say he mustn't play wiv me. How long must people keep on being sorry? He said he'd play his own self."
Montagu was puzzled. He sympathised with his small brother—it had been a long, dull day for him, too—but yet he felt that the tiger-man ought not to be bothered. Montagu was sensitive and sympathetic, and even as he had caught sight of the tiger-man walking up the path he realised that it was a different tiger-man from the one of a week ago who had rolled over and over in the grass so joyously.