"Of course you have, my good fellow, and it is because of this that I
know they never can have reached you except from an Erewhonian source."

Hanky smiled,--snorted, and muttered in an undertone, "I shall begin to
think that this fellow is a foreign devil after all."

"And now, gentlemen," said my father, "the moon is risen. I must be
after the quails at daybreak; I will therefore go to the ranger's
shelter" (a shelter, by the way, which existed only in my father's
invention), "and get a couple of hours' sleep, so as to be both close to
the quail-ground; and fresh for running. You are so near the boundary of
the preserves that you will not want your permit further; no one will
meet you, and should any one do so, you need only give your names and say
that you have made a mistake. You will have to give it up to-morrow at
the Ranger's office; it will save you trouble if I collect it now, and
give it up when I deliver my quails.

"As regards the curiosities, hide them as you best can outside the
limits. I recommend you to carry them at once out of the forest, and
rest beyond the limits rather than here. You can then recover them
whenever, and in whatever way, you may find convenient. But I hope you
will say nothing about any foreign devil's having come over on to this
side. Any whisper to this effect unsettles people's minds, and they are
too much unsettled already; hence our orders to kill any one from over
there at once, and to tell no one but the Head Ranger. I was forced by
you, gentlemen, to disobey these orders in self-defence; I must trust
your generosity to keep what I have told you secret. I shall, of course,
report it to the Head Ranger. And now, if you think proper, you can give
me up your permit."