"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins, "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay tut--tut--tut--tut--sh-sh-shiss--" says he, loosening his stammer at rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a red-hot machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the farmer is white in the face and imploring the Babe to let by-gones be by-gones. "N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer p-p-poovay exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub--" and away it goes again like a combined steam-riveter and shower-bath, like the water coming down at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than twenty minutes of this. A quarter-of-an-hour usually sees him bolting and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses of fond farewell through the keyhole. We are billeted on a farm at the present moment. The Skipper occupies the best bed; the rest of us are doing the _al fresco_ touch in tents and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape. We are on very intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk. Every morning I awake to find half-a-dozen hens and their gentleman-friend roosting along my anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying rent for the roost. The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since--a moustache must be very ticklish to digest. Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open, noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower. Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld a gentle milch privily sucking it up behind, his back. There was a strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in the _café au lait_ to-day. This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face. Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering beside my bed. "Show a leg, quick," he whispered. "Rouse out, and Uncle will show boysey pretty picture." Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl I followed him tip-toe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call "home." Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within. It was, as he had promised, a pretty picture. At the foot of our MacTavish's mattress, under a spare blanket lifted from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig. Both were occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose. "Heads of Angels, by Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS," breathed Albert Edward in my ear. PATLANDER. * * * * * [Illustration: _Old Lady from the Country_. "I'VE ASKED FOUR PORTERS, AND THEY ALL TELL ME DIFFERENT." _Porter_. "WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT, MISSUS, IF YER ASKS FOUR DIFFERENT PORTERS?"] * * * * * COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.