to-morrow; but before so very long, I hope."

"Will the Germans shoot at you?"

"You jolly well bet they will!"

"Don't excite him, Morland," interfered Claudia; for when Landry once
woke out of his usual stolid calm and began to trouble his poor dull
brains with questions, he was apt to get peevish and troublesome. "No,
no, Landry dear; Morland is quite safe at present, and we won't let the
Germans get him. Take this basket down to the beach and find me some
more shells. I want some yellow ones to finish the pattern I was making
on the ledge here."

Claudia was an adept at managing Landry, and could keep the boy quiet
and change the current of his impulses when others only irritated him.
She put a basket in his hand and a yellow shell for a pattern, led him
by the arm to the mouth of the grotto, and showed him the spot on the
beach where he would be likely to find more. To her relief, he departed
quite happily on the errand. She had been afraid he was on the verge of
a burst of temper. She turned to her other brother.

"I'd a great deal rather you took that officer's case back to him right
at once, Morland!"

But Morland was in a don't-care mood.

"He's not to have it for a fortnight. If I don't leave it in the
cupboard here, I shall just chuck it into the sea, so I give you full
and fair warning! Be a sport, Claudia! Here's Lorraine ready to see the
fun of it. Aren't you, Lorraine?"

Neither of the girls was really quite easy about the propriety of thus
hiding the officer's papers, but to please Morland they consented to do
as he wished, and to come again in a fortnight to fetch them. After all,
it seemed only a sort of practical joke, and, to judge from Morland's
accounts, ragging was very much in fashion at his camp, among the
Tommies at any rate. So long as Captain Blake did not find out who had
kept the leather case there would be no trouble, and they thought he
deserved some punishment for his arrogant behaviour towards his men.

It was a concession which they afterwards deeply regretted.

CHAPTER XX

Smugglers' Cove

Morland's leave ended on Sunday night, and by Monday morning both he and
his superior officer were back in camp. Claudia came to school in an
unusually quiet and depressed frame of mind.

"Yes, I miss Morland," she acknowledged to Lorraine; "but it isn't
altogether that. I'm worried about him. Perhaps it's silly of me, but I
can't help it. I know I can't expect him to keep a