The Meet 307 



of earnestness. What she really means, as one may see by 

 the look of her eyes, is something quite different. 



Follow the Master, and you will see him next taking off 

 his cap to an old dame and her two daughters on the back 

 seat of Farmer Sykes's democrat. Farmer Sykes is on the 

 front seat with a couple of sturdy boys, also of the Sykes 

 persuasion. 



" Good morning, Mrs. Sykes. And how are you, James? 

 Any foxes up your way ? " 



" Oh, yes," says Farmer Sykes. "A vixen has laid up 

 her cubs in that old earth in the spring lot by the thorn- 

 apple tree. They must be very fit, too, I 'm a-thinking, 

 for my misses declares the mother has been feeding on her 

 prize Plymouth Rock pullets all summer. If you don't 

 come up and bustle them about a bit pretty soon, they '11 be 

 so fat they can't run." 



"I '11 be up there," says the Master, and he makes a 

 memorandum in his note-book, " and give them such a 

 dusting as a fox never had before in his life. I suppose 

 you 've no objection to our hunting over your farm, Mr. 

 Sykes?" 



" Not a bit. Come as often as you like. Kill your fox 

 in the parlour if you want to. A little blood would do 

 the old carpet good. My misses was saying only the other 

 day it was getting awfully faded." 



" All right, James ; but," with a sly look at the two Miss 

 Sykeses on the back seat, " I think I had better send some 

 of these two-legged hounds to do the hunting in the par- 

 lour." And the troubles of the Sykes family bad crops, 

 an overdue bank-note, the drought, and the grasshoppers 



