mine behind this stump in the hedge. And directly we get to the village
we'll buy some biscuits; I know it's long past dinner-time." She took
out a handful or two of gold and hid it in the hollows of an old
hornbeam. "How round and yellow they are," she said. "Don't you wish
they were made of gingerbread and we were going to eat them?"

"Well, they're not, and we're not," said Cyril. "Come on!"

But they came on heavily and wearily. Before they reached the village,
more than one stump in the hedge concealed its little hoard of hidden
treasure. Yet they reached the village with about twelve hundred guineas
in their pockets. But in spite of this inside wealth they looked
quite ordinary outside, and no one would have thought they could have
more than a half-crown each at the outside. The haze of heat, the blue
of the wood smoke, made a sort of dim misty cloud over the red roofs of
the village. The four sat down heavily on the first bench to which they
came. It happened to be outside the Blue Boar Inn.

[Illustration: He staggered, and had to sit down again in a hurry]

It was decided that Cyril should go into the Blue Boar and ask for
ginger-beer, because, as Anthea said, "It was not wrong for men to go
into beer-saloons, only for children. And Cyril is nearer being a man
than us, because he is the eldest." So he went. The others sat in the
sun and waited.

"Oh, how hot it is!" said Robert. "Dogs put their tongues out when
they're hot; I wonder if it would cool us at all to put out ours?"

"We might try," Jane said; and they all put their tongues out as far as