"I like to hear the leaves rustle when you kick them, don't you? When I was so high, I used to pretend it was wading in the surf."
The young man moved over to the gutter of the road where the leaves were deepest and kicked violently. "And the more noise you make," he said, "the more you frighten away the wild animals."
The girl shuddered in a most helpless and fascinating fashion.
"Don't!" she whispered. "I didn't mention it, but already I have seen several lions crouching behind the trees."
"Indeed?" said the young man. His tone was preoccupied. He had just kicked a rock, hidden by the leaves, and was standing on one leg.
"Do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it that you are merely brave?"
"Merely brave!" exclaimed the young man. "Massachusetts is so far north for lions," he continued, "that I fancy what you saw was a grizzly bear. But I have my trusty electric torch with me, and if there is anything a bear cannot abide, it is to be pointed at by an electric torch."
"Let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the wood, and that we are lost."
"We don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as I remember it, the babes came to a sad end. Didn't they die, and didn't the birds bury them with leaves?"
"Sam and Mr. Peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl.