ng to prosecute inquiries which would have told him that,
although the confession was only in the morning papers, the murder
was twenty years old, he escaped unseen and set his little white
figure on a walk through the common. He was out to see the blood.

But, for a birthday, it was a disappointing morning. He discovered
for the first time that Wimbledon Common occupied an interminable
expanse of country; and really there was nothing unusual this
morning about its appearance, or about the looks of the people whom
he passed. So he gave up his quest and returned homeward. Then it
was that his lazy eyes looked down a narrow, leafy lane that ran
along the high wall of his own garden. Now all Wimbledon suspects
that this lane was designed by the Corporation as a walk for lovers.
There is evidence of the care and calculation that one spends on a
chicken-run. For the Corporation, knowing the practice of lovers,
has placed in the shady recesses of the lane a seat where these
comical people can intertwine. At the sight of the lane and the
seat, Master Pennybet immediately decided how he would occupy his
afternoon. He would move that seat along his garden wall, till it
rested beneath some ample foliage where he could lie hidden. Then he
would wait the romantic moments of the evening.

This idea proved so exciting that the luncheon of which he partook
was (for a birthday) regrettably small. And no sooner was it
finished than he rushed into the lane, and addressed his splendid
muscles to removing the seat.

To begin with he tried pushing. This failed. The more he pushed the
more his end of the seat went up into the air, while the other
remained fast in the ground. The only time he succeeded in making
the seat travel at all it went so fast that it laid him on his
stomach in the lane. So he tried pulling from the other end. This
was only partially successful. The seat moved towards him with
jerks, at one time arriving most damnably on his shins, and at
another throwing him into a sitting position on to the ground. And
there is a portion of small boys which is very sensitive to stony
ground. At these repeated checks the natural child in Mr. Pennybet
caused his eyes to become moist, whereupon the strong and
unconquerable man in him choked back a sob of temper, and pulled the
seat with a passionate determination. I tell you, such indomitable
grit will always get its way, and the seat was well lodged against
Mr. Pennybet's wall and