Mr. Percival Jones was feeling slightly troubled in his usually peaceful conscience. He could honestly say that he had never smoked. He could honestly say that he had never drank. But in his bedroom reposed two bottles of brandy, purchased at the advice of an aunt "in case of emergencies." In his bedroom also was a box of cigars that he had bought for a cousin's birthday gift, but which his conscience had finally forbidden to present. He decided to consign these two emblems of vice to the waves that very evening.
Meanwhile William had returned to the hut and was composing a tale of smugglers by the light of a candle. He was much intrigued by his subject. He wrote fast in an illegible hand in great sloping lines, his brows frowning, his tongue protruding from his mouth as it always did in moments of mental strain.
His sympathies wavered between the smugglers and the representatives of law and order. His orthography was the despair of his teachers.
"'Ho,' sez Dick Savage," he wrote. "Ho! Gadzooks! Rol in the bottles of beer up the beech. Fill your pockets with the baccy from the bote. Quick, now! Gadzooks! Methinks we are observed!" He glared round in the darkness. In less time than wot it takes to rite this he was srounded by pleese-men and stood, proud and defiant, in the light of there electrick torches wot they had wiped quick as litening from their busums.
"'Surrender!' cried one, holding a gun at his brain and a drorn sord at his hart, 'Surrender or die!'
"'Never,' said Dick Savage, throwing back his head, proud and defiant, 'Never. Do to me wot you will, you dirty dogs, I will never surrender. Soner will I die.'
"One crule brute hit him a blo on the lips and he sprang back, snarling with rage. In less time than wot it takes to rite this he had sprang at his torturer's throte and his teeth met in one mighty bite. His torturer dropped ded and lifless at his feet.
"'Ho!' cried Dick Savage, throwing back his head, proud and defiant again, 'So dies any of you wot insults my proud manhood. I will meet my teeth in your throtes.'
"For a minit they stood trembling, then one, bolder than the rest, lept forward and tide Dick Savage's hands with rope behind his back. Another took from his pockets bottles of beer and tobacco in large quantities.
"'Ho!' they cried exulting. 'Ho! Dick Savage the smugler caught at last!'