That point decided for the time being, they sat down in the hot sand to recover their wind, Jim holding his prey tightly by the ears on his off side, since a moment's lack of caution would result in its instant transfer to another owner. "I'm going to learn to swim," said Jack. "HE won't let us," said Jim. Then, intent silence as a sand-piper came hopping along a ridge. It stopped at sight of them, and fixed them first with one inquiring eye and then with the other. Their hands felt for their little clubs. The sand-piper decided against them, and flew away with a cheep of derision. Jim had dropped the rabbit for his club. Jack leaned over behind him and had it in a second. Jim hurled himself on him, and they were at it again hammer and tongs, and presently they were sitting panting again, and this time the rabbit was on Jack's off side, and, for additional security, wedged half under his sandy leg. "We could tell him we'd asked HIM and HE said Yes," said Jim, resuming the conversation as if there had been no break. "He'll go and ask HIM himself, and HE'LL say No," said Jack, with perfect understanding, in spite of the mixture of third persons. "H'mph!" grunted Jim sulkily. "Wish HE was dead." "There'd be somebody else." From which remark you may gather that, where abstruse thinking met with little encouragement, Master Jack was the more thoughtful of the two. "We'll go in and watch him when he goes in to-morrow," suggested Jim presently. "They'd see us." "Drat 'em! Let 'em. Who cares?" "Means lickings. . . . And that Kennet he lays on a sight harder than he used to." "Ever since we caught him in the rat-trap. He remembers it whenever he's licking us. . . . Soon as I'm a man I'm going to kill Kennet. It's the very first thing I shall do." "I don't know," said Jack doubtfully. "He only licks us when HE tells him to." "I should think so," snorted Jim, with scorn at the idea of anything else. "HE always looks at us as if we were toads. Why does he?" "Damned if I know," said Jack quietly. It sounded odd from his childish lips, but it had absolutely no meaning for him. It was simply one of the accomplishments they had picked up from Mr. Kennet. An upward glance at the sun at the same moment suddenly accentuated a growing want inside him. He sprang up with a whoop, swinging his rabbit by the ears, and made for the hole in the sand-hill. Jim followed close on his heels, and presently, clad only in short blue knee-breeches of homely cut, and blue sailor jerseys, they were trotting purposefully through the shallows towards Carne and dinner, chattering brokenly as they went. A grim old man watched them from an upper window till they padded silently round the corner out of sight. They ran in through the back porch, and so into the comfortable kitchen with its red-tiled floor and shining pans, and dark wood linen-presses round the walls. Old Mrs. Lee, grandmother to one of them, turned from the fire to greet them.