lazed as hard and passionlessly as his eyes. Something came to her
of her wonderful mother's tales of the ancient Saxons, and he seemed to
her one of those Saxons, and she caught a glimpse, on the well of her
consciousness, of a long, dark boat, with a prow like the beak of a bird
of prey, and of huge, half-naked men, wing-helmeted, and one of their
faces, it seemed to her, was his face. She did not reason this. She felt
it, and visioned it as by an unthinkable clairvoyance, and gasped, for
the flurry of war was over. It had lasted only seconds, Bert was dancing
on the edge of the slippery slope and mocking the vanquished who had
slid impotently to the bottom. But Billy took charge.

"Come on, you girls," he commanded. "Get onto yourself, Bert. We got to
get onta this. We can't fight an army."

He led the retreat, holding Saxon's arm, and Bert, giggling and
jubilant, brought up the rear with an indignant Mary who protested
vainly in his unheeding ears.

For a hundred yards they ran and twisted through the trees, and then,
no signs of pursuit appearing, they slowed down to a dignified saunter.
Bert, the trouble-seeker, pricked his ears to the muffled sound of blows
and sobs, and stepped aside to investigate.

"Oh! look what I've found!" he called.

They joined him on the edge of a dry ditch and looked down. In the
bottom were two men, strays from the fight, grappled together and still
fighting. They were weeping out of sheer fatigue and helplessness,
and the blows they only occasionally struck were open-handed and
ineffectual.

"Hey, you, sport--throw sand in his eyes," Bert counseled. "That's it,
blind him an' he's your'n."

"Stop that!" Billy shouted at the man, who was following instructions,
"Or I'll come down there an' beat you up myself. It's all over--d'ye get
me? It's all over an' everybody's friends. Shake an' make up. The drinks
are on both of you. That's right--here, gimme your hand an' I'll pull
you out."

They left them shaking hands and brushing each other's clothes.

"It soon will be over," Billy grinned to Saxon. "I know 'em. Fight's fun
with them. An' this big scrap's made the days howlin' success. What did
I tell you!--look over at that table there."

A group of disheveled men and women, still breathing heavily, were
shaking hands all around.

"Come on, let's dance," Mary pleaded, urging them in the direction of
the pavilion.

All over the park the warring bricklayers were shaking hands a