'Tell you what,' the coachman went on firmly, 'blowed if I don't
hide the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took
'im! Then I'll come back for him afterwards.'

'No, you don't,' said the footman. 'I've took to that kid so as
never was. If anyone's to have him, it's me - so there!'

'Stow your gab!' the coachman rejoined. 'You don't want no kids,
and, if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a
married man and a judge of breed. I knows a first-rate yearling
when I sees him. I'm a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest
mended.'

'I should 'a' thought,' said the footman sneeringly, you'd a'most
enough. What with Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor
Stanley, and Helena Beatrice, and another -'

The coachman hit the footman in the chin - the foot- man hit the
coachman in the waistcoat - the next minute the two were fighting
here and there, in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere,
and the little dog jumped on the box of the carriage and began
barking like mad.

Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the
side of the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened
the door of the carriage - the two men were far too much occupied
with their quarrel to notice anything - took the Lamb in his arms,
and, still stooping, carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along
the road to where a stile led into a wood. The others followed,