Coristine looked up after securing his twelfth victim, and saw four figures sauntering down the hill.  Three were young ladies in print morning gowns; the fourth was the ineffable dude, Lamb.  At once he went back, and put himself into socks and boots, turning down his trouser legs, as if innocent of the childish amusement.  “Haw,” brayed Mr. Lamb, “is thot you, Cawrstine?  Been poddling in the wotter, to remind yoursolf of the doys when you used to run round in your bare feet?” Outwardly calm, the lawyer advanced to meet the invaders.  Bowing somewhat too ceremoniously to the three ladies, who looked delightfully fresh and cool in their morning toilets, he answered his interlocutor.  “I am sure, Mr. Lamb, that it would afford Mr. Bigglethorpe and Marjorie additional satisfaction, to know that their wading after crawfish brought up memories of your barefooted youth.  Unfortunately, I have no such blissful period to recall.”  Mr. Lamb blushed, and stammered some incoherencies, and Miss Carmichael, running past the lawyer towards Marjorie, whispered as she flitted before him, “you rude, unkind man!” This did not tend to make him more amiable.  He snubbed the Crown Land gentleman at every turn, and, more than usually brilliant in talk, effectually kept his adversary out of conversation with the remaining ladies.  “Look, Cecile!” said Miss Halbert; “Marjorie is actually joining the waders.  “Mr. Lamb stroked his whisker-moustache and remarked:  “Haw, you know, thot’s nothing new for Morjorie; when we were childron together, we awften went poddling about in creeks for crowfish and minnows.”  Then he had the impertinence to stroll down to the brook, and rally the new addition to the crawfishing party.  To Coristine the whole thing was gall and wormwood.  The only satisfaction he had was, that Mr. Lamb could not summon courage enough to divest himself of shoes and stockings and take part in the sport personally.  But what an insufferable ass he, Coristine, had been not to keep on wading, in view of such glorious company!  What was the use of complaining:  had he been there she would never have gone in, trust her for that!  Wilkinson and he were right in their old compact:  the female sex is a delusion and a snare.  Thank heaven! there’s the prayer gong, but will that staring, flat-footed, hawhawing, Civil Service idiot be looking on while she reattires herself!  He had half a mind to descend and brain him on the spot, if he had any brains, so as to render impossible the woeful calamity.  But the fates were merciful, sending Mr. Lamb up with Marjorie and Mr. Bigglethorpe.  Now was the angry man’s chance, and a rare one, but, like an angry man, he did not seize it.  The other two ladies remarked to each other that it was not very polite of three gentlemen to allow a lady, the last of the party, to come up the hill alone.  What did he care?