“It wasn’t only just a lark,” said the boy. “I cut around and listened this afternoon when you was jawing, and I thought why not be in it? Only I do sleep that heavy, what with the riding and the tumbling and all. So I didn’t wake till you’d got her out and then I cut up along ahind the hedge to be beforehand with you. An’ I was. It was a fair cop, matey, eh?” “What are you going to do about it?” Francis asked flatly; “tell your father?” But Mavis reflected that he didn’t seem to have told his father yet, and perhaps wouldn’t. “Ain’t got no father,” said the Spangled Boy, “nor yet mother.” “If you are rested enough you’d better go on,” said the Mermaid. “I’m getting dry through.” And Mavis understood that to her that was as bad as getting wet through would be to us. “I’m so sorry,” she said gently, “but—” “I must say I think it’s very inconsiderate of you to keep me all this time in the dry,” the Mermaid went on. “I really should have thought that even _you_—” But Francis interrupted her. “What are you going to _do_?” he asked the Spangled Boy. And that surprising child answered, spitting on his hands and rubbing them: “Do? Why, give a ’and with the barrer.” The Mermaid put out a white arm and touched him. “You are a hero,” she said. “I can recognize true nobility even under a once-spangled exterior. You may kiss my hand.” “Well, of all the, ...” said Francis. “Shall I?” the boy asked, more of himself than of the others. “Do,” Mavis whispered. “Anything to keep her in a good temper.” So the Spangled Boy kissed the still dampish hand of the Lady from the Sea, took the handles of the barrow and off they all went. [Illustration: “_The police._”] Mavis and Francis were too thankful for this unexpected help to ask any questions, though they could not help wondering exactly what it felt like to be a boy who did not mind stealing his own father’s Mermaid. It was the boy himself who offered, at the next rest-halt, an explanation. “You see,” he said, “it’s like this here. This party in the barrow—” “I know you don’t mean it disrespectfully,” said the Mermaid, sweetly; “but _not_ party—and _not_ a barrow.” “Lady,” suggested Mavis. “This lydy in the chariot, she’d been kidnapped—that’s how I look at it. Same as what I was.” This was romance indeed; and Mavis recognized it and said: “You, kidnapped? I say!” “Yus,” said Spangles, “when I was a baby kid. Old Mother Romaine told me, just afore she was took all down one side and never spoke no more.” “But why?” Mavis asked. “I never could understand in the books why gypsies kidnapped babies. They always seem to have so many of their own—far, far more than anyone could possibly want.” “Yes, indeed,” said the Mermaid, “they prodded at me with sticks—a multitude of them.”