"Hi!" it cried. "Who're you, an' what are you doin' here!"
A man, carrying a shotgun and accompanied by a dog, strode up with determined air.
Trenholme explained civilly, since the keeper was clearly within his rights. Moreover, the stranger was so patently a gentleman that Velveteens adopted a less imperative tone.
"Did you hear a shot fired somewhere?" he asked.
"Yes. Among those trees." And Trenholme pointed. "It was a rifle, too," he added, with an eye at the twelve-bore.
"So I thought," agreed the keeper.
"Rather risky, isn't it, firing bullets in a place like this?"
"I just want to find out who the ijiot is that did it. Excuse me, sir, I must be off." And man and dog hurried away.
And Trenholme, not knowing that death had answered the shot, took his own departure, singing as he walked, his thoughts altogether on life, and more especially on life as revealed by the limbs of a girl gleaming in the dark waters of a pool.