At last it was finished, and James took it out and set it. He disguised it (rather thinly) with half-a-dozen oak leaves and baited it with a lot of caterpillars, and retired behind a tree with the end of a long piece of string in his hand.
"When Philip walks up to the trap," he explained, "he starts eating the caterpillars. I pull the string, and he is caught in the calico. It's called a bow-net."
He waited patiently for an hour-and-a-half, except for a short break while he rounded up the caterpillars, who, not knowing the rules, had walked away. Then we took the luncheon interval; scores, James (in play) 0; Philip 0.
"I don't see," said Ansell soon after the resumption, "why poor old James should do all the work. Let's all help."
We began by posting an appeal in prominent spots about the grounds:—
PHILIP—If this should meet the eye of. Return to your sorrowing family, when all will be forgotten and forgiven and no questions asked.
Next we festooned the estate with helpful notices, such as "This way to the Trap —>" and "Caterpillar Buffet first turn to Left." One of the peacocks was observed to be reading this last with great interest, so we added a few more notices for the special benefit of unauthorised food-hogs: "Free List Suspended until Further Notice," and "Eat Less Worm."
At tea-time Philip was still holding coldly aloof. But while we were indoors Bennett, the gardener, caught him by some simple artifice beneath James's notice. I found him putting the truant back in his cage.
"Don't do that, Bennett," I said. "Put him in Mr. James's trap. He's had a lot of trouble making that trap, and it's a pity to waste it."
Bennett grinned a toothless grin at me and did some dialect, which I understood to mean that I might do as I liked, but that he (Bennett) was not going to catch no more birds for us.