"No, no. You're going
with us, in the car."
Now, long usage and an uncanny intelligence had given Lad a more
than tolerable understanding of the English language's simpler
phrases. The term, "You're going with us in the car," was as
comprehensible to him as to any child. He had heard it spoken,
with few variations, a thousand times, in the past nine years. At
once, on hearing the Master's command, he jumped down from the
truck; trotted off to the car, a hundred yards distant; and
sprang into his wonted place in the luggage-cluttered tonneau.
He chanced to jump aboard, from one side; just as the guide's
hobbledehoy son was hoisting a heavy and cumbersome duffle bag
into the tonneau, from the other. Lad's eighty pounds of nervous
energy smote the bag, amidships; as the boy was balancing it high
in air, preparatory to setting it down between two other sacks.
As a result, boy and bag rolled backward in a tangled embrace,
across several yards of stony ground.
Lad had not meant to cause any such catastrophe. Yet he stood
looking down in keen enjoyment at the lively spectacle.
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