A PINHOLE PICTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12761, 3 October 1919, Page 9

A PINHOLE PICTURE.

GIPSY HONOUR. The woman stood in the old oak doorway and watched the two disconsolate gipsy figures come up the path from the kitchen regions. Cook had evidently been indulging in her favourite pastime of “ giving a piece of her mind ’ ’ to the intruders. “What’s the matter?” she asked as they hurried past. “It was them apples, lady,” explained one of the lads, shuffling awkwardly. “AVe arst if so lie as we might_ buy a penn’rth.” “ Well, 1 don’t see apples,” she admitted, “but you may go down andi fill your pockets if you like.”

They turned with a simultaneous happy grin, then one hesitated.

‘‘Fill om* pockets?” h G repeated. . **Yes, quite full,” she smiled, ‘ : as it’s a hot day. 'You’ll find .those codling down there on the right very juicy.”

The lads went half a dozen hasty steps, the older hesitated again, and finally, coming swiftly back, stood facing her while he ripped open his coat and held it wide.

“Oh,” she laughed, “poacher’s pocket ! Of course, I wasn’t reckoning on that!”

But there was no laughter in his face as he stood there, half ashamed, half defiant, wholly honest. With an effort she screwed her face into gavity. “I stick to my word,” she said. He stared a moment* Then he leaned towards her with a sudden grin. “No harm’ll ever come to your chickens, lady,” he said, and disappeared in search of his applesAnd though 300 gipsies continued to camp within a .stone’s throw, no solitary' egg vanished from the unprotected hen roosts of the old red house