narrow sandy road skirting one side of the walled
park. This byway was completely screened from outside observation by
the high bulwark of the Home and by thick masses of rhododendron
shrubbery. At a bend in the road Miss Chuff halted the motor, and
motioned Bleak to descend.

"Now we will look for the persecuted patriot," she said.

Bleak took charge of the basket of food, and Miss Chuff drew a small
rope ladder from a locker under the driver's seat. This she threw
deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron spikes.
Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall, dropping down
into a tangle of underbrush.

"I left him in here somewhere," said the girl, as they set off along a
narrow path. "This was obviously the best place to hide, as, except for
Father's horse, the Home hasn't had an inmate for two years. There was
some talk of Father making this the headquarters of the Great General
Strafe in this campaign, but I don't believe they have done so yet."

"Hush!" said Bleak. "What is that I hear?"

A dull, regular, recurrent sound, a sort of rasping sigh, stole through
the thickets. They both listened in some agitation.

"Sounds a little like an airplane, with one engine missing," said Bleak.

"Can it be the sea, the surf breaking on the sand?" asked Miss Chuff.

This seemed probable, and they accepted it as such; but as they pushed
on through the tangle of saplings and bushes the sound seemed to
localize itself on their left. Bleak peeped cautiously through a leafy
screen, and then beckoned the girl to his side. They looked down into a
warm sandy hollow, overgrown and sheltered by a large rhododendron with
knotted branches and dry, shiny leaves. Curled up on the sand bank, in
the unconsciously pathetic posture of sheer exhaustion, lay Quimbleton,
asleep. A droning snore buzzed heavily from where he lay.

"Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff. "How tired he looks."

He did, indeed. The gray and silver uniform was ragged and
soil-stained; his boots were white with dust; his face was unshaved,
though a razor lay beside him, and it seemed that he had been trying to
strop it on his Sam Browne belt. His pipe, filled but unlit, had fallen
from his weary fingers; beside him was an empty match-box and tragic
evidence of a number of unsuccessful attempts to get fire from a
Swedish tandsticker. Crumpled under the elbow of the indomitable
idealist was a much-thumbed copy of The Bartender's Benefactor, or