hat again. “Now that’s a very peculiar thing,’ he said, with a sheepish laugh. “I made sure I'd left that ’at just over against a bramble-bush, and you can see for yourself there ain’t no bramble-bush not in this walk at all. If you’ll allow me, Mr. Humphreys—that’s the name, ain’t it, sir?—I'll just call one of the men in to mark the place like.”
William Crack arrived, in answer to repeated shouts. He had some difficulty in making his way to the party. First he was seen or heard in an inside alley, then, almost at the same moment, in an outer one. However, he joined them at last, and was first consulted without effect and then stationed by the hat, which Clutterham still considered it necessary to leave on the ground. In spite of this strategy, they spent the best part of three-quarters of an hour in quite fruitless wanderings, and Humphreys was obliged at last, seeing how tired Mrs. Cooper was becoming, to suggest a retreat to tea, with profuse apologies to Miss Cooper. “At any rate you've won your bet with Miss Foster,” he said; “you have been
