“Oh, all right,” said the kid.

“Having a good time fishing?”

“Oh, all right,” said the kid.

Young Bingo led me off to commune apart.

“Doesn’t jolly old Oswald’s incessant flow of prattle make your head ache sometimes?” I asked.

Bingo sighed.

“It’s a hard job.”

“What’s a hard job?”

“Loving him.”

“Do you love him?” I asked, surprised. I shouldn’t have thought it could be done.

“I try to,” said young Bingo, “for Her sake. She’s coming back to-morrow, Bertie.”

“So I heard.”

“She is coming, my love, my own——”

“Absolutely,” I said. “But touching on young Oswald once more. Do you have to be with him all day? How do you manage to stick it?”

“Oh, he doesn’t give much trouble. When we aren’t working he sits on that bridge all the time, trying to catch tiddlers.”

“Why don’t you shove him in?”

“Shove him in?”

“It seems to me distinctly the thing to do,” I said, regarding the stripling’s back with a good deal of dislike. “It would wake him up a bit, and make him take an interest in things.”

Bingo shook his head a bit wistfully.

“Your proposition attracts me,” he said, “but I’m afraid it can’t be done. You see, She would never forgive me. She is devoted to the little brute.”

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