"We'll be fifty-three," Dick said at last. "A jolly funny looking lot
we'll be. All sitting round staring at each other through specs, with
white hair and no teeth worth mentioning. I'll have an ear-trumpet, and
Mollie will wear a cap like Grannie's, and Jerry will be a blithering
old idiot saying, 'Hey!' like General Dyson-Polks."
They had to laugh at this picture of themselves, and then Mollie began
at the beginning and told the story of Prue's first visit. The boys
were deeply interested. Their own experiences had merely been a
repetition of the first--Hugh had appeared and, like the gentleman who
dealt in Relativity, they were Here and they were There. "It has taught
us something about Australia anyhow," said Dick; "that is, of course,
if we saw the real thing. The next thing is to find out whether we did
or if the whole show was just bunkum."
"What I should like to know," said Jerry reflectively, "is who the
Campbells were, and how they got mixed up with your lot. They must have
at some time, or your people wouldn't have those photographs."
Mollie smiled. She knew how they and the Campbells had got "mixed up",
but she had never told the boys of her discovery; it was a little
secret between her and a certain photograph that smiled down at her
from the morning-room mantelpiece. She liked to think how the original
would have laughed along with her.
"What I should like to know," said Dick, "is what that chap O'Rourke
was doing in that field. What was his mysterious experiment, and how
did Hugh's stone cut into it? That's what I want to know, and I don't
suppose I ever will, now. I don't think we'll go back, not at present
anyway. The show's over for this time. In fact I don't want to go; I'm
too jolly well pleased to be where I am. Gee-up, you lazy brute,"--this
to Long John, who apparently thought he had done enough work for one
day and was nosing about the soft grass with contemptuous disregard for
his passengers. He moved on unwillingly, and Dick took him briskly
downhill.
In the village there were old friends to be greeted, and many inquiries
for Mollie's ankle to be answered. Fresh crusty loaves were brought out
by the baker, loosely wrapped in soft paper, and packed away under the
seats. A large box, containing a peculiarly delicious make of sponge
cake, was set on Mollie's lap, and a blue paper bag of sifted sugar was
entrusted to Jerry's special care by a misguided grocer. Dick had a
golf-club needing attention, which entailed a long and intimate
conversation with the local carpenter, who was also a well-known local
golfer, and the best hand at repairing clubs, Dick was convinced, in
the whole of Great Britain.