114 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



" I guess they 're in the cloth," I said, with an 

 uneasy foreboding of evil. 



I shook the rag. 



Alas, alas ! 



The truth was apparent. Darby and Joan had 

 run away. 



How they had managed it was a mystery. I 

 had tied the cloth on as usual. Perhaps it was a 

 little loose, and it may be that by great struggles 

 those creatures, almost as pliable as slugs, slipped 

 through and fled. 



The girl went away almost immediately, and I 

 rushed back to the dish. Away went the box of 

 bottles and tins of insects, up came the heavy 

 boards ; into every crack and cranny among the 

 sweet alyssum did we look, but a dried Darby or 

 a parched Joan appeared not. 



I am quite certain that Joan never planned 

 that escape. She need not come back to apolo- 

 gize. I exonerate her entirely. She was of too 

 meek a nature to propose such a thing, or else she 

 was a tremendous hypocrite. I know well enough 

 that it was Darby the daring that found the way 

 out and persuaded her to follow, but, inasmuch as 

 there was no water in the open world to which he 

 invited her, I very much fear that Joan's fidelity 

 was rewarded by a dry death. 



Still, I am glad to have become acquainted, 

 though so briefly, with Water-lizards. It is some- 

 thing to have even seen an animal, as poor Paolo 



