The two policemen at Chudstone were feeling extremely puzzled.

It seemed so impossible that a boy of eight, supposed to have left home only that morning with little or no money, could have gone very far, and yet how was it, if he were anywhere in the neighbourhood, that nobody had yet succeeded in finding him?

There were no rivers within several miles of Woodsleigh, and even the horse-ponds were shallow, so that Micky could not well have been drowned; if he had been run over by a motor-car his mangled body would surely have been discovered before now; and as to the possibility of his having been stolen by gipsies, a raid upon the Baddicomb van had made it clear that that theory, at least, was without foundation. Under the circumstances it seemed extraordinary, not to say magical, that the boy had so utterly and absolutely disappeared.

Now, as a matter of fact, there was nothing[202] magical or even extraordinary in the business. Micky had simply gone to Eastwich, and he had travelled there not on a broom-stick, but part of the way on his own legs, and the other part hanging on to the back of a cart, which was taking some noisily aggrieved pigs for their last sad drive to the pork butcher’s.

The real reason why nobody had managed to track him was twofold—firstly, he had had about twelve hours’ more start than his friends fancied, having left home not on Wednesday morning, but at half-past seven on Tuesday evening; and secondly, people were on the look out for one little gentleman, whereas it should have been for two little tramps!

‘Don’t I make a splendid beggar?’ Micky had demanded triumphantly, the evening before, when he had jumped out to join Diamond Jubilee, who was waiting just underneath his window—and the boast was no vain one. It is wonderful how a quick-witted boy can transform himself by dint of changing a neat sailor-suit for a ragged old coat and pair of knickers put away in the lumber-room, dispensing with collar, shoes, and stockings, and muddying his face and hands with flower-bed earth (‘you have to lick it to make it stick,’ Micky was careful to explain when he told the story afterwards); and all these things Micky had done, with the result that he looked every bit as[203] much of a little tramp as Diamond Jubilee himself.

‘It isn’t many men who’d have thought of waiting quietly in bed till the servants were safe out of the house,’ Micky had remarked complacently, as he and Diamond Jubilee were setting out, ‘and I don’t suppose most people would have known how to disguise themselves so well. It’s really a beautifully managed adventure.’

In Diamond Jubilee’s eyes the adventure had needed only one improvement.

‘I could do with a bit of something to eat afore we starts,’ he had suggested.

‘But Jane said I wasn’t to have my proper supper to-night, and of course we can’t take anything, for that would be stealing,’ said Micky, not in the least meaning to lecture, but simply to state a matter of fact.

‘You are a softy!’ said Diamond Jubilee, but he spoke in quite an affectionate tone and did not press the point further. It was strange how different he was when alone with Micky, from what he was when Emmeline was trying to improve him.

‘What have you done with your monkey-nuts?’ Micky had asked.

‘Oh, I just throwed ’em away. I were that sick of ’em, an’ they’d have been an awful fag to carry.’

[204]

‘You are a slacker, Diamond Jubilee!’ said Micky. ‘Why, just look at me, carrying a whole suit besides my shoes and stockings!’ It had occurred to Micky that he had better take his discarded sailor-suit and shoes and stockings with him, as they would be the handiest things to sell in case he found himself in need of money. It really was, as he said, a beautifully managed adventure!

None of the little Boltons had worn shoes or stockings for the first six years of their lives, so that Micky’s feet were too thoroughly hardened to mind stones or anything else, and the children did the first two miles of their journey at a good swinging pace, the more so, that there are plenty of sign-posts in that part of the country, so they did not have to stop and ask the way. During the third mile Diamond Jubilee began to flag badly, and Micky was secretly repenting the foresight which had given him such a troublesome bundle to carry; and at the beginning of the fourth mile both boys agreed that they must rest somewhere for the night before going on any farther.

They were just at that moment passing a farmhouse, one of the outbuildings of which proved on inspection to be a barn with some straw in it. What better sleeping-place could have been desired? The boys went in, nestled down amongst the straw, and dozed off as soundly as a couple of[205] little tops. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the lowing of the cows woke them up next morning before anyone had come in to find them, and they stole out again, feeling wonderfully refreshed and quite ready for the remaining nine miles of their walk. They had already gone one of those miles before Micky suddenly remembered that he had left the bundle of his suit and shoes and stockings behind in the barn. It did not seem worth while to go back and fetch them, however, especially as they were such a bother to carry.

It could not have been more than about five o’clock when the boys set out again, but they made most of the remainder of their journey in so leisurely a fashion that it was past three in the afternoon before they were well into Eastwich, and they would have been later still had it not been for the secret lift which they obtained by hanging on to the pigs’ cart for the last two miles of the way. What they had been doing all the time it would have been hard to say; they had begged their breakfast at one farm and their lunch at another—neither meal was more than a drink of water and a hunch of bread each, but the bread tasted delicious, eaten under the hedge, after that long, hungry walk; they had played about; Micky had had such a successful fight with a little boy who had called after them, that Diamond Jubilee held out hopes that he might eventually develop[206] into the same kind of person as a certain friend of his, who had, he said, ‘been in quod fifteen times for fighting, and would knock a chap down sooner than look at him’; and they had passed the time of day with most of the animals they met; but still, even allowing for all this, it must be owned that their progress was decidedly slow.

‘I reckon,’ remarked Diamond Jubilee, when at last they did find themselves strolling through the streets of Eastwich—it was at just about same time that Emmeline was making her way to Green Ginger Land—‘I reckon we’d better get some money afore we go to Mother Grimes’. She aren’t pleased if you come in without money, or wipes, or such, and sometimes she beat you something awful.’

Micky had not the slightest idea what ‘wipes’ might be, but he was not going to give himself away by asking.

‘Does she ever go on beating you till you bleed?’ he inquired with interest. He had never been beaten in his life, and was not in the least dismayed at the prospect, as a more experienced little boy might have been. On the contrary, he regarded it as adding just that touch of danger without which no adventure is complete.

‘I’ve bled whole basins’ full before now!’ boasted Diamond Jubilee. ‘It aren’t much of a treat, I can tell you, when once Mother Grimes[207] starts a good old set-to, so I reckon we’ll go to the Fair for a bit and do coach-wheels for the folks to throw us money before we go home.’

This plan exactly suited Micky, and to the Fair they accordingly went.

So it came about that Micky presently found himself once more in the midst of all that delightful noise and bustle which made up Eastwich Fair. He would turn his very best coach-wheels, he decided, and earn quantities of pennies for motor-rides and ice-cream (last time Emmeline wouldn’t let them have any because people had to lick it out of glasses, as there were no spoons) and cocoanut-shies, and visits to the elephants. He wasn’t going to give all his money to that old Mother Grimes, whatever Diamond Jubilee might do.

To all appearance that young gentleman was in no great hurry to do anything, for he would keep loitering about in an idle way long after Micky had begun turning coach-wheels. Micky told him he was a slacker, but it made no difference.

Quite a little crowd gathered to watch Micky.

‘Don’t the little chap do it well?’ ‘Just look at the poor lamb’s bare feet?’ ‘He’d be a real pretty child if his face weren’t so dirty.’ ‘Don&r............