.--We have met many motors, and they are always coming up behind
us and making us jump and blinding us with dust, but we have never
envied them."

Gregory wrote painfully:

DEAR X.,

"Thank you most awfully for the Slowcoach. It is very good and
suitable. I am the Keeper of the Corkscrew, and also the Requester of
Camping-Grounds.

"Your affectionate

GREGORY BRUCE AVORY.

CHAPTER 20

THE ADVENTURE OF THE LINE OF POETRY

ON the next morning, which was Sunday, Jack hurried through his
dressing and washing at a great pace and instantly disappeared. The
others were just beginning breakfast when he came rushing up in a state
of wild excitement, calling, "Kink! Kink!"

"What is it?" said that leisurely man.

"It's a rabbit!" cried Jack. "I've caught it, and I don't know how to
kill it."

"Oh, Jack," said Mary, running up, "don't kill it! Why should it be
killed?"

"For supper, of course," said Jack. "Come on, Kink! Quick, or it will
get away!"

They all left their breakfast and followed Jack, and when they came up
to him he was kneeling over a kicking object.

"Oh, Kink," he said, "do hold it and kill it! How do you do it? The
gipsy boy didn't show me properly."

"The gipsy boy?" said Mary.

"Yes, he gave me a wire. See, it's round its neck. That's how I caught
him. Do kill him, Kink!"

"Please don't do anything of the kind," said Janet. "We don't want to
eat rabbits we catch like that."

"No," said Hester, "please don't kill it. Please let it go."

"What mollycoddles you are!" said Jack. "How do you suppose rabbits are
killed, anyway? You eat them all right when they're cooked."

"I couldn't eat a rabbit that I had seen struggling alive," said Janet.

"No," said Mary. "Oh, Jack, please let him go! You've caught him, and
that's the great thing; and now be merciful."

Kink still held the struggling creature.

"I vote he's let loose again," said Robert. "I don't want any of him."

"No, and I'm sure I don't," said Gregory; "but wouldn't it be fun to
keep him in a hutch?"

"Wild rabbits are no good in hutches," said Kink.

Jack was very sullen. "It's awful rot," he said. "You all ought to be
vegetarians if you talk like that. But we'll let him go," and he
loosened the wire and the rabbit dashed away.

"A nice return to the gipsy for his kindness," Jack muttered.

Kink watched the rabbit till it was out of sight. "Whose rabbit do you
suppose that was?" he asked.

"Mine," said Jack.