"Oh, I don't know; I couldn't tell. It was like something in a long
sack kicking about there. I hit him nearly every time."

"Well, that's something, sir. Do him more good than a peck out o' our
apples. Better for his morials. He ought to have had twice as much."

"But he had enough to keep him from coming again."

"Mebbe, sir; but there's a deal o' wickedness in boys, when they are
wicked, and they soon forgets. Here, chuck me the rope, and I'll coil
it up."

"Rope! I have no rope."

"Why, you don't mean to say as you've let him cut off with it, sir?"

"I!" cried Tom. "Why you had it."

"Ay, till he snatchered it away, when I was down. Hff! My elbows."

"Then he has run away with it, David."

"Ay, and he'll go and sell it; you see if he don't. Nice nooish bit o'
soft rope as it were too."

"Never mind the rope, David," said Tom, jumping down, after listening
intently for a few minutes.

"Ah, that's werry well for you, sir; but what am I to say when master
arkses me what's become on it?"

"I'll tell him, David. There, it's nearly ten again. I say, you didn't
go to sleep to-night."

"No, nor you nayther, sir," said David, with a chuckle. "I'm sorry
'bout that rope, but my word, you did let him have it, sir. Can't be
much dust left in his jacket."

David burst into a hoarse fit of laughter, and Tom joined in, laughing
till the tears ran down his cheeks.

"Say, Master Tom," cried David. "Pippins!"

There was another burst of laughter, and then David suggested
Wellingtons, and followed up with Winter Greenings, each time roaring
with laughter.

"He's got apples this time, and no mistake, sir," he said.

"Yes, David; striped ones."

"Ay, sir, he have--red streaks. But think he'll come again to-night?"

"No, David; so let's get back and think of bed."

"Yes, and of my bed here, sir. There's a nice lot o' footprints I know,
and I come down first over a young gooseberry-bush, and feels as if here
and there I'd got a few thorns in my skin."

Tom listened again, but all was still, and the garden was as quiet ten
minutes later, the ripening apples still hanging in their places.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

"And now, Tom," said Uncle Richard one day, "here we have a perfect
speculum or concave reflector, but it does not reflect enough. What
would you do now?"

"Silver it," said Tom promptly; "make it like a looking-glass."

"Exactly; but how would you do that?"

"Oh, it's easy