He disposed himself very comfortably on his back with his knees up, and tilted his straw hat so as to shade that side of his face towards the sun. Mark pulled a bennet.
“Not too ticklish,” said Bevis, “else that won’t do: don’t touch my lips.”
“All right.”
Mark held the bending bennet (the spike of the grass) bending with the weight of its tip, and drew it very gently across Bevis’s forehead. Then he let it just touch his cheek, and afterwards put the tip very daintily on his eyelid. From there he let it wander like a fly over his forehead again, and close by, but not in the ear (as too ticklish), leaving little specks of pollen on the skin, and so to the neck, and next up again to the hair, and on the other cheek under the straw hat. Bevis, with his eyes shut, kept quite still under this luxurious tickling for some time, till Mark, getting tired, put the bennet delicately on his lip, when he started and rubbed his mouth.
“Now, how stupid you are, Mark; I was just thinking. Now, do it again.”
Mark did it again.
“Are you thinking?” he asked presently.
“Yes,” whispered Bevis. They were so silent they heard the grasshoppers singing in the grass, and the swallows twittering as they flew over, and the loud midsummer hum in the sky.
“Are you thinking?” asked Mark again. Bevis did not answer—he was asleep. Mark bent over him, and went on tickling, half dreamy himself, till he nodded, and his hat fell on Bevis, who sat up directly.
“I know.”