CHAPTER I.
The End of the Holidays "Ingred! Ingred, old girl! I say, Ingred! Wherever have you taken yourself off to ?" shouted a boyish voice, as its owner, jumping an obstructing gooseberry bush, tore around the corner of the house from the kitchen garden on to the strip of rough lawn that faced the windows.
"Hullo! Cuckoo! Coo-ee! _In_-gred!" "I'm here all the time, so you needn't bawl!" came in resigned tones from under the shade of a large fuchsia.

"You're enough to wake the dead, Chumps! What is it you want now! It's too hot to go a walk till after tea.

I'm trying to get ten minutes peace and quiet!" Hereward, otherwise "Chumps," put his feet together in the second position, flung out his arms in what was intended to be a graceful attitude, and made a mock bow worthy of the cinema stage.
"Have them by all means, Madam!" he replied in mincing accents.

"Your humble servant has no wish to disturb your ladyship's elegant repose.

He offers a thousand apologies for his unceremonious entrance into your august presence, and implores you to condescend----_Ow! Stop it, you brute!_" Hereward's burst of eloquence was brought to an abrupt end by the violent onslaught of a fox-terrier puppy which flung itself upon him and began to worry his ankles with delighted yelps of appreciation.
"Stop it! Keep off, I tell you! I _won't_ be chewed to ribbons!" he protested, dodging the attacks of the playful but all too sharp teeth, and catching the little dog by the piece of tarred rope that formed its collar.