bridge that spanned the trout-stream.

_At_, but not into.

With that extraordinary magnetic attraction which glass has for the
missile of the juvenile thrower, the orchid-house, on the opposite
side of the path from the pear-tree, drew the errant stone to its
hospitable shelter.

Through the biggest pane of glass it crashed, neatly decapitated a
rare, choice exotic, the pride of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith,
head gardener, released from its hold a hanging basket, struck a large
pot (perched high in a state of unstable equilibrium), and passed out
on the other side with something accomplished, something done, to earn
a long repose.

So much for the stone.

The descending pot lit upon the edge of one side of the big glass
aquarium, smashed it, and continued its career, precipitating an
avalanche of lesser pots and their priceless contents.

The hanging basket, now an unhung and travelling basket, heavy,
iron-ribbed, anciently mossy, oozy of slime, fell with neat exactitude
upon the bald, bare cranium of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith, head
gardener, and dour, irascible child and woman hater.

"Bull's-eye!" commented Dam--always terse when not composing
fairy-tales.