d, Blink interposed between
him and the hat, growling and showing her teeth.

"Does she bite?" yelled the boy.

"Only strangers," cried Mr. Lavender.

Excited by her master's appeal, Blink seized the jacket of the boy, who
made for the shore, while the hat rested in the centre of the pond, the
cynosure of the stones with which the soldiers were endeavouring to drive
it towards the bank. By this, time the old lady had rejoined Mr.
Lavender.

"Your nice hat she murmured.

"I thank you for your sympathy, madam," Lavender, running his hand
through his hair; "in moments like these one realizes the deep humanity
of the British people. I really believe that in no other race could you
find such universal interest and anxiety to recover a hat. Say what you
will, we are a great nation, who only, need rousing to show our best
qualities. Do you remember the words of the editor: 'In the spavined and
spatch-cocked ruin to which our inhuman enemies have reduced
civilization, we of the island shine with undimmed effulgence in all
those qualities which mark man out from the ravening beast'?"

"But how are you going to get your hat?" asked the old lady.

"I know not," returned Mr. Lavender, still under the influence of the
sentiment he had quoted; "but if I had fifteen hats I would take them all
off to the virtues which have been ascribed to the British people by all
those great men who have written and spoken since the war began."

"Yes," said the old lady soothingly. "But, I think you had better come
under my sunshade. The sun is very strong."

"Madam," said Mr. Lavender, "you are very good, but your sunshade is too
small. To deprive you of even an inch of its shade would be unworthy of
anyone in public life." So saying, he recoiled from the proffered
sunshade into the pond, which he had forgotten was behind him.

"Oh, dear!" said the old lady; "now you've got your feet wet!"

"It is nothing," responded Mr. Lavender gallantly. And seeing that he
was already wet, he rolled up his trousers, and holding up the tails of
his holland coat, turned round and proceeded towards his hat, to the
frantic delight of the crowd.

"The war is a lesson to us to make little of little things," he thought,
securing the hat and wringing it out. "My feet are wet, but--how much
wetter they would be in the trenches, if feet can be wetter than wet
through," he mused with some exactitude. "Down, Blink, down!" For Blink
was plastering him with the w