"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him—wouldn't you, Tom?"
"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions, only in the shows."
"No; but if we were in the lion countries—I mean in Africa, where it's very hot—the lions eat people there. I can show it to you in the book where I read it."
"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."
"But if you hadn't got a gun—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?" Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the lion isn't coming. What's the use of talking?"
"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just think what you would do, Tom."
"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly—I shall go and see my rabbits."
II. The Falling Out
Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things—it was quite a different anger from her own. "Tom," she said timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money did you give for your rabbits?"
"Two half crowns and a sixpence," said Tom.