“Bless you, I’m not fighting,” said Jim blandly. “I’m watering the garden!”
“Yes, you’re Daddy’s useful little son, I know,” returned Mr. Meadows. “I’ll deal with you when I get down!”
“Told you water was necessary,” said Jim to his audience, two-thirds of which had collapsed on the grass, helpless. “Parched, that’s what he is. Turn on that tap a little harder, Dad, and I’ll give him a really nice tropic downpour!”
Mr. Meadows capitulated.
“Take off your beastly barbed wire,” he said, his tone expressing anything but pious resignation. “And put on your beastly great boot!” The boot descended with some force, and caught Jim on the shoulder as he stooped over his spiked entanglement. “Nice shot—there’s some balm in Gilead!” said Wally. He slid down, arriving at the ground with some force, and immediately gave chase to Jim, who had gathered up his property and fled.
“No one would think there was any work waiting on this place!” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “Come to breakfast, all of you—hurry up, Norah!”
Wally joined them in the breakfast-room, somewhat dishevelled.
“He’ll be in in a moment—he’s putting on the boot!” he said. “Isn’t he an uncivilized ostrich? I don’t know how you brought him up in his youth, sir, but he’s no credit to you. I’d sooner have old Lee Wing, pigtail and all.”
“You look a little damp, Wally,” Norah said, kindly. “I hope you won’t take cold!” To which the injured one returned merely a baleful glance, before devoting himself to his porridge.
Jim slipped in unobtrusively, wearing an air of bland composure.