“I should think not! Else you’d know it was a cruel, wicked, heartless thing to play practical jokes on small girls lost in the dark. One more step and I should have been sucked down I don’t know where.” “Ess fay! You’d a bin drownded in another minute.” “Well, what did you want to do such a horrid thing for?” “Blamed if I can tell ’e ’zactly; ’tis my business.” “Then it is a very disgraceful business, and you ought to know better.” “I doan’t know nothin’ ’tall. I be a li’l’ Jacky-Twoad. I awnly comes out the bog of a warm evenin’, like this here.” “I never hurt you, did I?” “Caan’t say as you did.” “I never even said an unkind word about you?” “Not as I’ve heard tell on.” “Then why were you so wicked?” The Jacky-Toad had nothing to answer, so changed the subject. “What might your name be, if I may ax?” “I’m called Mabel, and I’m spending my holidays on Dartmoor; and, playing hide-and-seek after tea, I got lost. But I live in London, and I’m going back there to-morrow.” “Wheer be that to?” “Far, far away. There are no greedy shaking-bogs there, and no darkness like this, and no dead bones scattered about, and no wicked Jacky-Toads either.” Mabel, though a clever child, didn’t know everything. “You’m a purty li’l’ maid seemin’ly, an’ mighty wise tu by the looks of it.” This in itself was flattering, because it is given to but few small girls to be complimented by a genuine Devon Jacky-Toad. “The thing is to be pretty inside,” answered Mabel. “My mamma tells me it doesn’t matter--not much--what we look like outside.” “That’s a gude job then, for ’tis allowed among Jacky-Twoads in general that I be ugly enough for a show.” “You’re wicked inside too; you must be, or you wouldn’t have tried to drown a little harmless girl.” “I be sorry,” said the Jacky-Toad frankly. “I never looked at the question from your p’int o’ view. Conversation do widen the mind amazin’.” “If you’re _really_ sorry, I’ll forgive you; and I should like to help you to be better, if I knew how it could be done.” “Sure I’d be very much obliged to ’e if you’d larn me a thing or two,” said the Jacky-Toad humbly. “You see, I’m going back to London to-morrow, so there won’t be much time.” “Damned if I won’t come with ’e! Then you can larn me proper,” exclaimed the Jacky-Toad. “You _mustn’t_ say things like that--it’s _wicked_. Where _did_ you pick up such words?” “From the moor-men, when they comed to cut peat in the bog. But ’tis awnly a figger o’ speech.” Mabel thought a moment. “Well, in your case I suppose it is,” she said; “because--I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t suppose you go _anywhere_ in particular when you die, do you?” “Caan’t say, never havin’ heard tell,” he answered. So the small girl fixed her mind on a noble resolve, and finally undertook to let the ignorant Jacky-Toad accompany her to town the following day.