ks all looked black, and seemed rather cool.

"Oh, you lazy young sybarite!" cried Joe Emson, as he came up. "You
always know the best places. Why didn't you answer me?"

"What's the good of answering?" cried Dyke. "I can't help old Goblin
getting away again. He will go, and nothing will stop him."

"But something shall stop him," said Joe. "I'll have an iron bar driven
into the ground, and tether him with a rope."

"No good," said Dyke drowsily: "he'd eat the rope and swallow the bar."

"Then I'll tether him with a piece of chain."

"He'd roll it up and swallow it.--I say Joe, I feel sure he had that
curb chain and the two buckles we missed."

"Nonsense! Come, get up, and help drive him in."

"I'm too tired, and it isn't nonsense. He's always on the lookout for
bits of iron and broken crockery. I took a hammer and a cracked
willow-pattern plate one day, and broke it up in bits and fed him with
them. He ate them all."

"Well, of course: birds do pick up stones and things to fill their
gizzards."

"And that's just how I feel," said Dyke.

"Eh? How?"

"As if my gizzard was filled with sharp bits of stone, and it makes me
irritable and cross."

"And lazy. Come: jump up."

"I can't, Joe. I said last time I'd never go after the goblin again,
and I won't."

"Yes, you will; you'll come and help me drive him in."

"No: let him go."

"Nonsense! He's the best cock bird I've got."

"Then the others must be bad ones," grumbled Dyke.

"Get up, sir!" cried Joe, stirring the boy with his toe.

"Shan't. I don't mind your kicking."

"Get up, or I'll duck you in the spring."

"Wouldn't be such a coward, because you're big and strong. Hit one of
your own size."

"I declare I will," cried Joe, bending down and seizing the boy by the
arm and waistband.

"All right, do: it will be deliriously cool."

Joe Emson rose up and took hold of his big beard.

"Don't leave me everything to do, Dyke, old boy," he said appealingly.
"I wouldn't lose that great ostrich for any money."

Dyke muttered something about hating the old ostrich, but did not stir.

"All right. I'll go alone," said Joe; and he turned away and walked
swiftly back.

But before he had gone a dozen yards Dyke had sprung up and overtaken
him.

"I'll come, Joe," he said; "but that old cock does make me so wild. I
know he understands, and he does it on purpose to tease me. I wish
you'd shoot him."

"Can't afford the luxury, litt