With Dunn, his first amusement gave way almost at once to an extremeannoyance.

For, in the first place, these proceedings seemed to him exceedinglyimpertinent, for what possible right did Clive imagine he had tocome playing the fool like this, sighing in the dim and blowingkisses like a infant to its mammy?

And secondly, unless he were greatly mistaken, Harold Clive might justas sensibly and safely have dropped overboard from a ship inmid-Atlantic for a swim as come to indulge his sentimentalities inthe Bittermeads garden at night.

"You silly ass!" he exclaimed in a voice that was somewhat low, but somewhatdistinct and somewhat full of an extreme disgust and wrath.

Clive fairly leaped in the air with his surprise, and turned andmade a sudden dash at the spot whence Dunn's voice had come, butwhere Dunn no longer was.

"What the blazes -?" he began, spluttering in ineffectual rage."You - you -!"

"You silly ass!" Dunn repeated, no less emphatically than before.

Clive made another rush that a somewhat prickly bush somewhateffectually stopped.

"You - who are you - where - what - how dare you?" he gaspedas he picked himself up and tried to disentangle himself from theprickles.