"I once had a night on one o' the Suffolk heaths with the gipsies; I was a boy then, and we had hare for supper--two hares, and they was cooked just like that, made into clay balls without skinning on 'em first." "But I thought they always skinned hares," I said, "because the fur was useful." "So it is, sir; but there was gamekeepers in that neighbourhood, and if they'd found the gipsies with those skins, they'd have asked 'em where the hares come from, and that might have been unpleasant." "Poached, eh ?" "I didn't ask no questions, sir.

And when the hares was done, they rolled the red-hot clay out, gave it a tap, and it cracked from end to end, an' come off like a shell with the skin on it, and leaving the hares all smoking hot.

I never ate anything so good before in my life." "Yah! These here geese 'll be a sight better, Tommy," said one of the men.

"I want to see 'em done." "And all I'm skeart about," said another, "is that the _Teaser_ 'll come back 'fore we've picked the bones." I walked slowly away to join Mr Brooke, for the men's words set me thinking about the gunboat, and the way in which she had sailed and left us among these people.

But I felt that there must have been good cause for it, or Captain Thwaites would never have gone off so suddenly.
"Gone in chase of some of the scoundrels," I thought; and then I began to think about Mr Reardon and Barkins and Smith.