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SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED.

In a minute or two Bruno returned, looking rather disconsolate. "He'd got friends with him, and he were cross!" he said. "He asked me who I were. And I said 'I'm Bruno: who is these peoples?'" And he said 'One's my half-brother, and t'other's my half-sister: and I don't want no more company! Go along with yer!' And I said 'I ca'n't go along wizout mine self!' And I said 'Oo shouldn't have bits of peoples lying about like that! It's welly untidy!' And he said 'Oh, don't talk to me!' And he pushted me outside! And he shutted the door!"

"And you never asked where Hunter's farm was?" queried Sylvie.

"Hadn't room for any questions," said Bruno. "The room were so crowded."

"Three people couldn't crowd a room," said Sylvie.

"They did, though," Bruno persisted. "He crowded it most. He's such a welly thick man——so as oo couldn't knock him down."

I failed to see the drift of Bruno's argument. "Surely anybody could be knocked down," I said: "thick or thin wouldn't matter."