Wally sighed.

"How like life! I never told my love, but let concealment like a worm
i' the bud . . ."

"Talking of worms, you once put one down my back!"

"No, no," said Wally in a shocked voice. "Not that! I was boisterous,
perhaps, but surely always the gentleman."

"You did! In the shrubbery. There had been a thunderstorm and . . ."

"I remember the incident now. A mere misunderstanding. I had done
with the worm, and thought you might be glad to have it."

"You were always doing things like that. Once you held me over the
pond and threatened to drop me into the water--in the winter! Just
before Christmas. It was a particularly mean thing to do, because I
couldn't even kick your shins for fear you would let me fall. Luckily
Uncle Chris came up and made you stop."

"You considered that a fortunate occurrence, did you?" said Wally.
"Well, perhaps from your point of view it may have been. I saw the
thing from a different angle. Your uncle had a whangee with him, and
the episode remains photographically lined on the tablets of my mind
when a yesterday has faded from its page. My friends sometimes wonder
what I mean when I say that my old wound troubles me in frosty
weather. By the way, how is your uncle?"