His sympathies wavered between the smugglers and the representatives of law and order. His orthography was the despair of his teachers.
_""Ho," sez d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k Savage"s hands with rope behind his back.
Another took from his pockets bottles of beer and tobacco in large quant.i.ties._
_""Ho!" they cried exulting. "Ho! d.i.c.k Savage the smugler caught at last!"_
_"d.i.c.k Savage gave one proud and defiant laugh, and, bringing his tide hands over his hed he bit the rope with one mighty bite._
_""Ho! ho!" he cried, throwing back his proud hed, "Ho, ho! You dirty dogs!"_
_"Then, draining to the dregs a large bottle of poison he had concealed in his busum he fell ded and lifless at there feet.""_
There was a timid knock at the door and William, scowling impatiently, rose to open it.
"What d"you want?" he said curtly.
A little voice answered from the dusk.
"It"s me--Peggy. I"ve come to see how you are, William. They don"t know I"ve come. I was awful sick after that seaweed this morning, William."
William looked at her with a superior frown.
"Go away," he said, "I"m busy."
"What you doing?" she said, poking her little curly head into the doorway.
"I"m writin" a tale."
She clasped her hands.
"Oh, how lovely! Oh, William, do read it to me. I"d _love_ it!"
Mollified, he opened the door and she took her seat on his buckskin on the floor, and William sat by the candle, clearing his throat for a minute before he began. During the reading she never took her eyes off him. At the end she drew a deep breath.
"Oh, William, it"s beautiful. William, are there smugglers now?"
"Oh, yes. Millions," he said carelessly.
"_Here_?"
"Of course there are!"
She went to the door and looked out at the dusk.
"I"d love to see one. What do they smuggle, William?"
He came and joined her at the door, walking with a slight swagger as became a man of literary fame.
"Oh, beer an" cigars an" things. _Millions_ of them."
A furtive figure was pa.s.sing the door, casting suspicious glances to left and right. He held his coat tightly round him, clasping something inside it.
"I expect that"s one," said William casually.
They watched the figure out of sight.
Suddenly William"s eyes shone.
"Let"s stalk him an" catch him," he said excitedly. "Come on. Let"s take some weapons." He seized his pop-gun from a corner. "You take--"
he looked round the room--"You take the wastepaper basket to put over his head an"--an" pin down his arms an" somethin" to tie him up!--I know--the skin I--he--shot in Africa. You can tie its paws in front of him. Come on! Let"s catch him smugglin"."
He stepped out boldly into the dusk with his pop-gun, followed by the blindly obedient Peggy carrying the wastepaper basket in one hand and the skin in the other.
Mr. Percival Jones was making quite a little ceremony of consigning his brandy and cigars to the waves. He had composed "a little effort"
upon it which began,
"O deeps, receive these objects vile, Which nevermore mine eyes shall soil."
He went down to the edge of the sea and, taking a bottle in each hand, held them out at arms" length, while he began in his high-pitched voice,
"O deeps, receive these----"
He stopped. A small boy stood beside him, holding out at him the point of what in the semi-darkness Mr. Jones took to be a loaded rifle.
William mistook his action in holding out the bottles.
"It"s no good tryin" to drink it up," he said severely. "We"ve caught you smugglin"."
Mr. Percival Jones laughed nervously.
"My little man!" he said, "that"s a very dangerous--er--thing for you to have! Suppose you hand it over to me, now, like a good little chap."
William recognised his voice.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "WE"VE CAUGHT YOU SMUGGLING!" WILLIAM SAID SEVERELY.]