If you let those poor bullies know what to expect they aren't, as a rule, over-anxious to toe the mark.

But you never _do_ let them know." "No," said Lord Newhaven, as he shot his letter into the brass mouth in the cottage wall, just below a window of "bulls'-eyes" and peppermints, "I never do.

I don't defend it.

But--" "But what ?" Lord Newhaven's face underwent some subtle change.

His eyes fixed themselves on a bottle of heart-shaped peppermints, and then met Dick's suddenly, with the clear, frank glance of a schoolboy.
"But somehow, for the life of me, until things get serious--_I can't_." Dick, whose perceptions were rather of a colossal than an acute order, nevertheless perceived that he had received a confidence, and changed the subject.
"Aren't you going to buy some stamps ?" he asked, perfectly aware that Lord Newhaven had had his reasons for walking to the post-office.
Lord Newhaven, who was being watched with affectionate interest from behind the counter by the grocer postmaster, went in, hit his head against a pendent ham, and presently emerged with brine in his hair and a shilling's worth of stamps in his hand.
Later in the day, when he and Dick were riding up the little street, with a view to having a look at the moor--for Middleshire actually has a grouse moor, although it is in the Midlands--the grocer in his white apron rushed out and waylaid them.
"Very sorry about the letter, my lord," he repeated volubly, touching his forelock.