Lord Burdon jumped out and lifted Percival in his arms before the frog-hunter was well aware of what had happened. "Not hurt, eh? That's all right! You young rascal, you--you might have been killed. Haven't you got ears? What are those great flappers for, eh?" and Lord Burdon tweaked a flapper and laughed jovially. "What were you doing, eh?" "I was chasing a frog," said Percival, rubbing his ear and using his elevation on Lord Burdon's arms to have a stare at the little boy and the pretty lady in the wagonette. "A frog! Why here's a frog for you. Come and look at my frog in the cart here." Lord Burdon carried him to the body of the wagonette. "Here's my frog! tadpole, rather. Rollo, look here. You're only a little tadpole, aren't you? Look what this fine air is going to do for you. Look at this great lump of a fellow. That's what you've got to be like!" The little tadpole smiled shyly. Tadpole was an excusable description. Rollo Letham at nearly ten might have passed for younger than Percival at rising eight. He was very thin, pale, fragile; his head looked too big for his delicate frame; his eyes were big and shy, his mouth nervous. "A shame!" said Lady Burdon, smiling. "You're not a tadpole, are you, Rollo? But this is a splendid young man!" And she stretched a kind hand--nicely gloved--across the cart to Percival. Lord Burdon raised him to meet it. Bare knees, well-streaked with mud and blood, came into view. "Oh, your poor little knees!" Lady Burdon cried. Percival caught Rollo's eye fixed in some horror on the wounds. "I cut them every day!" he said bigly, and shot a proud glance at the tadpole. "Well, they're terrible. They must be washed. Bring him in, Maurice. We'll wash him, as we've nearly killed him, at the house." "Yes, do! Yes, please do!" Rollo whispered, and his mother patted his hand, pleased at the animation of the thin little face. Lord Burdon hesitated: "Take him to the Manor? Why, that may be miles from his home, you know." "I suppose we can send him back in the trap, can't we?" Lady Burdon said, a trifle disagreeably. "You're a regular old woman, Maurice. Lift him in next to Rollo. You can see how Rollo takes to him, I should have thought." "Didn't want to be had up for kidnapping, you know," Lord Burdon responded cheerfully. "Would be a bad start in the local opinion--eh?" And he laughed with the appeal and the apology with which he always met his wife's waves of impatience. "Shove up, Rollo! In you get, frog-hunter! Heavens! What a lump. All right. Drive on!"