"Rot," said Tommy.
Five minutes later Tommy contentedly resumed his coat, his face flushed with victory.
The pale boy was leaning against a tree, with a handkerchief to his nose and one eye awry, whimpering vindictive epithets at his opponent—but Madge was nowhere to be seen.
Tommy looked up and down the leafy vistas a little disappointedly. Then,
"Never mind," he said, philosophically.
"By Jove, it's a jolly sweet thing is life—ripping, simply ripping. Good bye, old chap. Sniff upwards and it'll soon stop. So long."
In a brake where the wood falls back a little from the inroad of the common the poet paused, for the gleam of a straw hat against a dark background caught his eye.
"Why surely—no—yes, it is—how singular—so it is," he murmured, wiping his glasses.