It was on Monday he had met the likhnè-wālā, and on Saturday evening after tea it cleared up and they went out to the sands. They were to return to Golder’s Green next week, and Ronnie dreaded it unspeakably, for he felt that if nothing happened before he did that, then he was indeed abandoned and forlorn. Cedric and Githa would not let him dig with them because his methods were too erratic. Miss Biddle had finished _The Blue Necklace_, and started on _Love is a Snare_, and found it equally enthralling. Ronnie was digging by himself, a lonely little figure apart from the rest, and talking to himself as he worked. He had built a bungalow, and had just flattened out the compound round about it, and was beginning on the servants’ quarters, when he looked up to see a solitary figure coming across the ribbed and glistening sand. The tide was out, and there seemed miles of beach between him and the sea. They had had their tea extra early, and the beach was almost deserted, for it was just five o’clock. Ronnie watched the distant figure, and his heart seemed to jump up and turn over, for there was something dear and familiar about it, and yet ... he didn’t dare to hope. Then suddenly his long sight told him there was no mistake. It was, it _was_ the Uncle Gerald of his hopes and dreams! He started to run, and the figure made the glad assurance doubly sure by taking off its hat and waving it. Then Ronnie saw the dear, tall forehead, that, as he once pointed out to his uncle, "went right over to the back"; after that there could be no mistake. "I never thought you would come," he said, safe in the shelter of those kind arms, "and if you did I always thought all the dogs would be bound to come too." The likhnè-wālā was quite right when he said it would not be "over-easy" for Uncle Gerald. It wasn’t. It required a deal of diplomacy, and only Uncle Gerald’s charm and tact carried the matter through without a serious breach between the Golder’s Green relations and Ronnie’s parents. It cost a small fortune in cables, too. But in the end it was managed, and Ronnie went back to Longhope, where he fitted so uncommonly well. "I must say," said Uncle Gerald, "you’ve a nice taste in amanuenses." "What’s that?" asked Ronnie. "Well, I believe you call it a likhnè-wālā," said Uncle Gerald. "Both are long, rather clumsy names, and there’s not much to choose between them." "He was a nice likhnè-wālā," said Ronnie; "and very cheap." *XX* *THE CONTAGION OF HONOUR* It’s a far cry from cantonments in a town in Northern India to a village in the Cotswolds, and events had moved so fast in the last four months that for a while Robin felt rather breathless and bewildered. He was not yet six years old, but he had been through the Suez Canal six times. The first times he couldn’t remember at all, the second two passages only faintly, but the last two were vivid and epoch-making.