CLEAR WATERS 



o'clock or thereabouts when a rap at the window an- 

 nounced Dick's return, and proceeding to open the 

 front door I was quite relieved to see the colonel with 

 him and apparently sound. I couldn't set down the 

 precise reason for this sense of relief, because the reader 

 never knew Dick, and there probably was never any one 

 quite like him. But as the older man with rather a 

 depressed good-night went off into the darkness 

 towards his lodgings, I noticed that he had some- 

 thing like a white napkin tied round his head, and 

 then I instinctively knew there had been an adventure 

 of some sort. Of course there had ! ' Dick,' said I 

 when we got into the sitting-room, * what have you 

 done to the colonel ? ' 



And then the long pent-up humour of the thing 

 broke forth, and the incorrigible youth sat on the horse- 

 hair sofa and shouted with laughter for about five 

 minutes. When he had done I said sternly, ' What 

 does that bandage round his head mean ? ' 



' Lord ! it isn't a bandage, it 's only a knotted 

 handkerchief instead of his hat.' 



* Where 's his hat ? ' said I. 



1 Half-way to Ireland by this time.' 

 ' What ! the hat ? ' 



* Yes, of course, the hat, flies and all,' said the in- 

 corrigible one, falling into another unseemly burst of 

 mirth. 



And then in due course I learned that Dick's beastly 

 fly, if such a projectile can be called a fly, in one of his 

 wild, untutored whirlings had fastened in the colonel's 

 hat as it lunged forward, lifted it deftly off his head, 

 and laid it on the surface of the dark, rapid waters of 

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