hed out his riding-crop to the splashing
policeman, murmuring: "Oh deah, deah...."

"Don't be frightened," said the witch to the policeman. "We'll soon get
you out, and the water's so shallow you can't sink. Talking of sinking,
Richard, there's a question that puzzles me rather. If a rat got on to a
submarine, how would it behave? A submarine, you see, is a sinking ship,
and rats pride themselves so on knowing when to----"

Sarah Brown seized the witch by the shoulder. "Go away, witch," she
said.

"How d'you mean--go away?" asked the witch. "I've only just this minute
come."

"Go away, go away," was all that Sarah Brown could manage to repeat.

"Oh, very well," said the witch in her offended grown-up voice. "I can
take a hint, I suppose, as well as anybody. I'm going."

She seated herself with an irritable flouncing movement on Harold's
saddle, and flew away.

The policeman climbed out of the water, looking like an enraged seal.
Peals of laughter from the other side of the moonlit river robbed him of
adequate words.

"Not ser fast, my fine feller," he roared, seeing Richard kissing the
Horse Vivian on the nose, preparatory to riding away. "Don't you think
for a minute I don't know 'oo's at the bottom of this."

"You don't know how tired I am of loud noises," said Richard, lifting
one foot with dignity to the stirrup. "You don't know how bitterly I
long to be still and hear things very far off ... but always there is an
angry voice or the angry noise of guns in the way...."

He twined one finger negligently into the mane on the Horse Vivian's
neck, and pulled himself slowly into the saddle. The policeman stood
mysteriously impotent. Water dripped loudly from his clothes and
punctuated Richard's quiet speech.

"Dear policeman," continued Richard. "I believe you have talked so much
to-night that you haven't heard what a quiet night it is. You are
smaller than a star, and yet you make more noise than all the stars
together. You are not so cold as the moon, and yet your teeth chatter
more loudly than hers. The heat of your wrath is less than the heat of
the sun, and yet, while he is silent and departed, you fill the air with
clamour, and--if I may say so--seem to be outstaying your welcome. Oh,
dear policeman, listen.... Do you know, if there were no London on this
side and no War on that, the silence would be deep enough to fill all
the seas of all the worlds...."

He shook the reins, and the Horse Vivian mov