Arthur’s face clouded over.
“Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t. I don’t see we’re called upon to show them up.”
“But look what a mess the house is in till they’re bowled out. We’ll never get hold of a bat all the season.”
“Jolly bad luck, I know, but we must lump it, Dig. You must drop fooling about with your clues. Don’t get in a wax, now. I’ve got my reasons.”
“Whatever do you mean? Do you know who it was, then? Come in! Who’s there?”
The intruder was the Baby Jukes, who carried half a dozen letters in his hand, one of which he presented to the two chums.
“One for you,” said he. “They’re all the same. Wake gave Bateson and me a penny a-piece for writing them out, and we knocked off twenty. He says he’d have sent you one a-piece, only he knows you’ve not two ideas between you. Catch hold.”
And he departed, smiling sweetly, with his tongue in his cheek, just in time to avoid a Caesar flung by the indignant baronet at his head.
“Those kids are getting a drop too much,” said Dig. “They’ve no more respect for their betters than Smiley has. What’s this precious letter?”
The letter was addressed to “Messrs Herapath and Oakshott,” and was signed by Wake of the Fifth, although written in the inelegant hand of Master Jukes the Baby.