BILLY CAIRNS: DIPLOMATIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11533, 19 November 1900, Page 3

BILLY CAIRNS: DIPLOMATIST.

" Don't let me catch you hanging about here again, oror I'll set the dog on to you

; Tilly Bufton's father stood upon the steps that led to the French windows of the ibr.wingroom, and shook his fist at Tilly's sweetheart, who, looking as dignified as was possible under the circumstances, sat on the bottle-glass that crowned the wall of the Buftons' garden.

Behind the curtains of the drawingAiom was poor Tilly, biting her handkerchief into ribbons in an agony of apprehension, lest her papa and her Bobby should come to blows.

"I tell you, once and for all," continued Mr. Bufton, waving his hand magnificently, " if you persist in your attentions, I shall send her to France— a boarding-school !" "I was 20 last birthday, papa, and I'm too old to go to a boarding-school," wailed Tilly indignantly from the drawingroom. " And—and if 3-011 send my Jimmy away like that I'll— die! I know I shall!" "Rot!" replied her father, impatiently. " I say, Mr. Bufton," said Billy Cairns from the wall, " steady on there! That's hardly the way to speak to a lady, you know." , " I did not use bad language!" vociferated the old man.

"The word ' rot,' although it cannot be exactly described as swearing, is not good language," replied Jimmy. "Therefore it must be bad language, and, as such, unfit to use in the presence of a lady. That's logic," he added; '• but, of course, you don't understand logic, or you would not have allowed your stupid quarrel with my father to interfere with Tilly's happiness an mine."

" Look here!" shouted Mr. Bufton, almost beside himself with passion. " Get off that wall before 1 come and throw you off !" "I shouldn't advise you to try that on, my dear sir," replied jimmy, swinging his legs over to his own territory. " I may warn you that if you lay a finger on me your action would be regarded by the law as a technical assault. I understand that, as chairman of our local board of guardians, you are an ex-officio justice of the peace. Therefore, it is your first duty to keep the peace." * " I'll keep the peace with a thick stick on your back, you impudent young hound!" cried Mr. Bufton, and the French closed with a vigorous slam. A damp handkerchief was waved from one of the upper windows, Jimmy raised his cap with stately courtesy, and descended the ladder into his own domain.

"I wonder what the old boy meant by saying that he would set his dog on me?" mused Billy. " I always understood that he couldn't stand dogs in any form —even bull-pups like Julius Cjesar." As he thus spoke his thoughts aloud, there came a rustling in the laurel bushes that bordered the Cairns'garden, which was followed by a heavy panting and the appearance of a massive head from amongst the leaves.

According to dog fanciers, the head that made its appearance through the wreathing laurel leaves was as perfect in its own particular beauty as could be desired— is to say, it was a few degrees more uglv than original sin. Julius Ciesar was a bulldog above price. Compared to an average dog, he was as a battleship is to an excursion steamer. Yet his warlike appearance belied Julius Ciesar's true character, and Billy Cairns spoke the truth when he declared that, ever since his eyes had opened. Julius had never been guilty of biting anybody or anything save his dinner.

"Hullo, Julius !" said Billy, as Julius emerged cautiously from the shelter of the laurel.

He seated himself on a garden-seat as he spoke, and Julius, without comment, lumbered up beside him, sat down, and panted sympathetically. " Julius required no words to tell him that his master was full of trouble. Billy was quite aware of this, and, according to' his custom, commenced to confide his troubles to his canine friend. > v ,- i " Don't you ever go in for politics, Julius," continued Billy. " Men make themselves bigger fools over politics than over anything else in the world ! Julius winked a crooked tail.

" And Tilly and I are to be made unhappy because our "respective parents are a couple of old idiots who've managed to rake up a row because one of 'em is a Radical idiot and the other a Conservatic lunatic !" " Gur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r !" growled Julius. " It's all very well for you to growl, you blundering idiot !" continued Billy reproachfully ; " but you know very well that it was you who settled the business by getting through the fence and rolling your great carcase right amongst old ' Buffv's' pet calceolarias !"

Julius whined repentantly. Billy was about to continue his reproaches, when Julius, lifting his bluff muzzle, gave a lpw growl. Then he ran to the wall that divided the Cairns' from the Buftons' garden, and, standing on his hindlegs, growled again. To Billy's practised ear it was a growl of recognition. The ladder by which he had ascended to speak to Tillv was still standing against the wall, from the other side of which came a heavy puffing and blowing. Billy peered cautiously over the wall. There, standing on the gravel walk, stood a bulldog of abnormal ugliness and ferocity of aspect, who might have been the ghost of Julius Ctesar. "Now, young fellow." shouted a triumphant voice from the bathroom window of the Bufton residence, " that dog is going to remain loose in my garden ! He has been chained up ever since he was born ; so you know what to expect if you come trespassing in my garden !" Mr. Bufton waved his hand ironically towards the ferocious-looking beast, who was gazing up hungrily at Billy. " I have told my daughter," continued Mr. Bufton. " that I do not hold myself responsible for her safety if she comes out into the garden." Then he closed the window.

Billy sat like a stoic on the wall, struggling with a great desire to laugh aloud, for Tilly, at an upper window, was making frantic gestures of delight. In case Mr. Bufton might be watching him, he climbed down the ladder behind the shelter of the wall, and danced a solemn war-dance of delight ; while Julius Cajsar sat by, panting loudly, and thumping an accompaniment on the earth with his tail. " Julius, you old duffer," said Billy at length, " do you know who's on the other side of the wall, ready to bit your poor master Julius laughed— nearly as a dog can— then he whined. His whine was answered by an affectionate sniffing from the other side of the barrier. Julius wagged his tail violently. "Yes, Julius," said Billy gleefully, ' its vour own dear twin brother, Cornelius Agrippa ! And that old fool next door has brought him from the vet. to keep me off the grass—me, who have known and loved him ever since he was a blind pup !" Billy lifted the ladder and carried it quietly along the wall, till it was sheltered from the back windows of the Buftons' house by a thick chimp of lilacs. Julius trotted after him, wagging his tail. "It's getting dusk now, Julius," remarked Billy. " Wouf 1" assented Julius. " And we've arranged to meet Tilly in her back garden after dinne., to give her that beautiful engagement ring." If ever a dog exclaimed "What ho!" it was Julius at that moment. Billy ran up the ladder and call :d callously, "Grip, Grip!" There was a rustling in the bushes on the other side of the wall. " Hallo, Grip!" said Billy, affably, as Mr. Bufton's new purchase made his appenranee below. Cornelius Agrippa wagged his tail affectionately. "I want you, Agrippa," gurgled Billy, in a voice that might have charmed a statue from its pedestal. " You are coming to stay with me for a little while, and brothel Julius is going to stay with jour master — look after Tilly. D'ye see?" Billy, crooking his leg deftly on the top of the wall, seized Agrippa by his collar, and hoisted him up as Julius came panting up the steps. Whilst the two brothers muzzled one another affectionately, Billy changed their collars. "Now, Julius, my boy, you're going" to stay next door for a bit," said Billy, as he dropped the protesting Julius on the Buf-

ton side of the wall. Then, lifting Agrippa, he carried him down the steps into his own garden. ■ An hour or so later, when Mr. Bufton issued stealthily from the drawingroom, he saw his old friend Cairns smoking alone on the verandah of the next garden, and he remembered how, in the years gone by, before they had broken, their friendship :n a stupid parochial quarrel, they had been wont to smoke their cigars together on the fine autumn evenings, whilst his Tilly and Cairns' Billy had made mud-pies or daisychains in the garden below. Mr. Bufton's sentiments, however, disappeared in a flash as a sound of subdued conversation fell on his ears.

Taking advantage of cover in a manoer that would have done credit to a Bushman, he crept stealthily forward. There, on his pet garden seat, was Tilly, with her head on Billy's broad shoulder, and his newly-purchased bulldog, regardless of his duty, seated next to Tilly, thumping a loud approval of proceedings with his tail. Tilly was holding up a slender hand in the moonlight, and there was a glitter of jewels. " You are a dear, extravagant boy she was saying. " But, really, you ought nob to have bought- me such"

Just at this moment there came an interruption. —- Mr. Bufton could never afterwards quite recall what happened. All he could remember was a growl and a scuffle in the next garden that brought Tilly and Billy to their feet. Then his new bulldog had flown at him, and he ! had found himself seated in his pet pear tree, shaking down showers of his most precious " Williams." "By George!" exclaimed Billy, peering over the wall, " Agrippa's chased my governor up our apple tree !" "Billy!" screamed Tilly, "come quickly and call Julius away! Papa's in the pear tree!"

Then Tilly began to cry. Billy laughed till his undutiful tears ran down his face. Cornelius Agrippa growled fiercely under the apple tree in the garden in Billy's house, where Billy's father, hanging like a sloth, was talking something stronger than politics. _ Julius Caesar glared with a baleful eye into the pear tree in Tilly's garden, where Mr. Bufton clung like a pear ripe to falling point. "Oh, Billy, save them!" ,"J will!" said Billy. "I'll save 'em both, if they 11 promise to make up their quarrel and give their consent to our marriage !"

There s the makings of a great man about that boy of yours, Cairrte," said Mr. button, as, half an hour later, he sat smoking with his old friend and enemy. He nodded to where Billy, his arm round 1 illy s waist, was strolling round the Bufton garden.

Alfred, said Mr. Cairns, with due solemnity, although 1 say it, it is not every boy who can put two parents up a tree settle a political difference, and arrange a minutes." SOmet!lin £ less than four