"What children?... Oh, damn! I'd forgotten them.... Here, aren't they? Just messing about ... they were.... I'd just got an idea when you disturbed me."
"But the children?" gasped the stout one, staring wildly round the dim landscape. The young man ran his fingers through his hair. The thin lady gave a little scream.
"It was all a plot. They've led us to a lonely spot, and now someone's going to murder us."
"They'll be all right," said the young man, miserably. "Children always are. I'm getting a cold. Let's go home."
"Don't be foolish," said the stout one sternly. "I will not move from this spot till I have found the children. If necessary I will search all night and you with me."
They began to trudge wearily in single file along the narrow path.
"Oo, someone's coming," screamed the thin lady. "Let us be brave.... Offer no resistance.... They're sure to be desperate.... Vivian, for my sake, don't be rash.... Don't kill anyone."
But it was another little procession that was approaching them, as weary-looking as their own. At the head walked a woman in a tall toque. At the end walked a small boy with freckles and untidy hair and a dejected expression. They peered into each other's faces.
"Have you seen two little boys?" they all began simultaneously.
Then the thin lady and the twins' mother had hysterics.
It was William who found them in a dry ditch near by. They were fast asleep, with blissful smiles upon their mouths, besmeared with jam and honey. They awoke and stared in amazement at the crowd of friends and relations.
"Nice William!" murmured George sleepily.
"Wanner be a save adain," said John. "Want more dam!"
WILLIAM was on his way to visit his new friend. He whistled as he went, his lips pursed determinedly, his brows drawn into a scowl of absorption, his untidy hair standing, like a somewhat unsaintly halo, round his head. When William whistled, he could be heard a long way off. It was an affair of great effort and concentration. It was a sound before which strong men quailed.
William's new friend heard the sound long before William had turned the corner that led to his house. He put his hand to his head and groaned.
William's new friend was Vivian Strange, the distinguished poet and journalist. Vivian Strange had taken a furnished house in the village in order to enjoy the calm and quiet which were so essential to his literary calling. Instead of calm and quiet he had found William. That is, William had adopted him.