" said Maisie,
sniffing
the air.
Kipling - Poems
When at last Dick forwarded the gift, she forgot
to thank him for it.
Many holidays had come and gone since that day, and Dick had grown into
a lanky hobbledehoy more than ever conscious of his bad clothes. Not
for a moment had Mrs. Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the
average canings of a public school--Dick fell under punishment about
three times a month--filled him with contempt for her powers. "She
doesn't hurt," he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion, "and
she is kinder to you after she has whacked me. " Dick shambled through
the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the
school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them,
cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try
to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. "We are both
miserable as it is," said she. "What is the use of trying to make things
worse? Let's find things to do, and forget things. "
The pistol was the outcome of that search. It could only be used on the
muddiest foreshore of the beach, far away from the bathing-machines and
pierheads, below the grassy slopes of Fort Keeling. The tide ran out
nearly two miles on that coast, and the many-coloured mud-banks, touched
by the sun, sent up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was late in the
afternoon when Dick and Maisie arrived on their ground, Amomma trotting
patiently behind them.
"Mf!
" said Maisie, sniffing the air. "I wonder what makes the sea so
smelly? I don'tlike it! "
"You never like anything that isn't made just for you," said Dick
bluntly. "Give me the cartridges, and I'll try first shot. How far does
one of these little revolvers carry? "
"Oh, half a mile," said Maisie, promptly. "At least it makes an awful
noise. Be careful with the cartridges; I don't like those jagged
stick-up things on the rim. Dick, do be careful. "
"All right. I know how to load. I'll fire at the breakwater out there. "
He fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. The bullet threw up a spurt of
mud to the right of the wood-wreathed piles.
"Throws high and to the right.
to thank him for it.
Many holidays had come and gone since that day, and Dick had grown into
a lanky hobbledehoy more than ever conscious of his bad clothes. Not
for a moment had Mrs. Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the
average canings of a public school--Dick fell under punishment about
three times a month--filled him with contempt for her powers. "She
doesn't hurt," he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion, "and
she is kinder to you after she has whacked me. " Dick shambled through
the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the
school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them,
cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try
to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. "We are both
miserable as it is," said she. "What is the use of trying to make things
worse? Let's find things to do, and forget things. "
The pistol was the outcome of that search. It could only be used on the
muddiest foreshore of the beach, far away from the bathing-machines and
pierheads, below the grassy slopes of Fort Keeling. The tide ran out
nearly two miles on that coast, and the many-coloured mud-banks, touched
by the sun, sent up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was late in the
afternoon when Dick and Maisie arrived on their ground, Amomma trotting
patiently behind them.
"Mf!
" said Maisie, sniffing the air. "I wonder what makes the sea so
smelly? I don'tlike it! "
"You never like anything that isn't made just for you," said Dick
bluntly. "Give me the cartridges, and I'll try first shot. How far does
one of these little revolvers carry? "
"Oh, half a mile," said Maisie, promptly. "At least it makes an awful
noise. Be careful with the cartridges; I don't like those jagged
stick-up things on the rim. Dick, do be careful. "
"All right. I know how to load. I'll fire at the breakwater out there. "
He fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. The bullet threw up a spurt of
mud to the right of the wood-wreathed piles.
"Throws high and to the right.
