He showed me how they killed people. They come up behind you and catch you round the neck, and it's no good saying, "Shut up," because they don't understand English; then you make a noise like gargling for sore throats, and that's how they know you are dead. It makes the people very angry, Tommy says. If they take a dislike to anyone, you are sure to get killed, because they prowl after you until they do. And when you come to look at the dead man, you can see he has died a horrible death, and if you turn him over there isn't a mark on him. You see he didn't hear them coming. That's what Tommy Brown told me. Tommy says a Gherkin once saved his father's life by killing a snake. Tommy's father gave the Gherkin a lot of money to put in his pocket, but he wouldn't take it. The Gherkins don't have pockets, Tommy says. Tommy says, that if two Germans stood back to back to see who was the taller, a Gherkin could cut through both of them with his two-handled knife, and it would be done so quickly that neither of the Germans would know which was killed first. They do it by practice, Tommy told me. They always use two-handled knives, so that when they are tired with using one handle they can use the other. You can never catch a Gherkin because on the slightest movement in the bushes they throw a rope up into the air and climb up it, then they pull the rope up after them. Tommy says that Gherkins wear turbots on their heads. He says that they wear very few clothes, but they don't catch rheumatism because it is not known there. When Tommy's mother told him that people were sending presents to the Indian troops we had a meeting about it. We dug a deep trench in Tommy's garden and held the meeting there; Tommy didn't want the Germans to know. When we had dug the trench Tommy stood at one end, and I had to come up to him and give him the sign we had arranged. You had to move your ears and say "Gherkin," then you were admitted to the trench. It was because of the German spies. We decided to get money for the Indian troops by selling Tommy's white rats, and I was to lend Tommy my Jew's harp for a week as my share. Tommy sold the white rats in the playground after school. He stood on a box near the fence. The man who lives next door thought Tommy was going to climb over into his garden after a ball, and he said to Tommy, "My steemy friend, you stay where you are." Tommy took no notice because his mother said the man had been to India and brought back his liver and Tommy wasn't to listen. I bid fourpence for the two white rats; we had arranged that in the trench.