[Illustration:  WILLIAM’S HAIR STOOD ON END.  HE ALMOST FORGOT TO CLING TO THE SEAT.  FOR NOT ONE SCREAM CAME BUT MANY, MINGLED WITH THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS AND CROCKERY.]

“Look out, you ole softie!” he yelled.  “Look out for the donk, you ole ass.”

But the mule refused to be warned.  He neatly escaped the donkey cart himself, but he crashed the caravan into it with such force that the caravan broke a shaft and overturned completely on to the donkey cart, scattering pots and pans far and wide.  From within the caravan came inhuman female yells of fear and anger.  William had fallen on to a soft bank of grass.  He was discovering, to his amazement, that he was still alive and practically unhurt.  The mule was standing meekly by and smiling to himself.  Then out of the window of the caravan climbed a woman—­a fat, angry woman, shaking her fist at the world in general.  Her hair and face were covered with sugar and a fork was embedded in the front of her dress.  Otherwise she, too, had escaped undamaged.

The owner of the donkey cart arose from the melee of pots and pans and turned upon her fiercely.  She screamed at him furiously in reply.  Then along the road could be seen the figure of a fat man carrying a fishing rod.  He began to run wildly towards the caravan.

“Ach!  Gott in Himmel!” he cried as he ran, “my beautiful caravan!  Who has this to it done?”

He joined the frenzied altercation that was going on between the donkey man and the fat woman.  The air was rent by their angry shouts.  A group of highly appreciative villagers collected round them.  Then one of them pointed to William, who sat, feeling still slightly shaken, upon the bank.

“It was ’im wot done it,” he said, “it was ‘im that was a-drivin’ of it down the ’ill.”

With one wild glance at the scene of devastation and anger, William turned and fled through the wood.

“Ach!  Gott in Himmel!” screamed the fat man, beginning to pursue him.  The fat woman and the donkey man joined the pursuit.  To William it was like some ghastly nightmare after an evening’s entertainment at the cinematograph.

Meanwhile the donkey and the mule fraternised over the debris and the villagers helped themselves to all they could find.  But the fat man was very fat, and the fat woman was very fat, and the donkey man was very old, and William was young and very fleet, so in less than ten minutes they gave up the pursuit and returned panting and quarrelling to the road.  William sat on the further outskirts of the wood and panted.  He felt on the whole exhilarated by the adventure.  It was quite a suitable adventure for his last day of unregeneration.  But he felt also in need of bodily sustenance, so he purchased a bun and a bottle of lemonade at a neighbouring shop and sat by the roadside to recover.  There were no signs of his pursuers.

He felt reluctant to return home.  It is always well to follow a morning’s absence from school by an afternoon’s absence from school.  A return in the afternoon is ignominious and humiliating.  William wandered round the neighbourhood experiencing all the thrill of the outlaw.  Certainly by this time the gardener would have complained to his father, probably the schoolmistress would have sent a note.  Also—­someone had been scratched by the cat.