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eye.
    ‘You can come home an’ turn yourself back now,’ he said magnanimously, ‘if you want to.’
    For answer Maria turned her back on them, kicked her heels into the air, then leapt skittishly away.
    It would take too long to describe in detail the struggle by which the Outlaws finally brought the recalcitrant Maria from the field into Mr Simpkins’ garden and from Mr Simpkins’
garden through the French window into Mr Simpkins’ laboratory. Henry retired early from the contest after a kick on the shin.
    ‘ Now you know what he’s like,’ said Ginger bitterly, still obsessed by memories of his gastric trouble.
    It was William who had the bright idea of running home for a bunch of carrots and by means of this they led the frisky Maria into the garden of Mr Simpkins’ home. There Maria for a time
ran amok. She broke a pane of glass in the greenhouse, she pranced about the well rolled lawn, leaving innumerable hoof holes to mark her progress. She trampled down a bed of heliotrope. She
completely demolished a bed of roses. She bit William. She was finally brought through the French window into the lab at the cost of all the glass in the French window. The housekeeper, as it
happened, was lying down and was a very sound sleeper. A small child belonging to the jobbing gardener, pressing its nose through the front gate, was the amazed spectator of these proceedings.
    Inside the lab Maria grew more frisky still. She broke and ground into the carpet the test tubes that had formed Joan’s magic circle. She wrecked the bench and everything upon it. She
kicked over an entire shelf of bottles.
    ‘He’s mad,’ said William, ‘he’s mad at bein’ a donkey an’ he doesn’t know how to turn himself back.’
    ‘Say somethin’ to him,’ urged Ginger.
    William said something to him.
    ‘If you can’t turn yourself back,’ said William, ‘you’ll have to stay like you are. We can’t do anything more for you.’
    In answer to this Maria kicked over a small cupboard and then put her head through a large glass beaker.

    ‘HE’S MAD AT BEIN’ A DONKEY,’ SAID WILLIAM, ‘AN’ HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO TURN HIMSELF BACK.’
    ‘Let’s go,’ said Ginger, ‘let’s go home. We’ve brought him back to his own home. We can’t do anything more. And, anyway, it serves him right, him and
    his dead bodies an’ sticking pins into people.’
    The Outlaws were just going to take his advice and return home as unostentatiously as possible, when they discovered that their line of retreat was cut off. A small band of women headed by the
Vicar’s wife was coming up the drive towards the front door. Like five streaks of lightning the Outlaws disappeared behind a screen which Maria amid the general chaos had considerately left
standing.
    The small band of women headed by the Vicar’s wife were the members of a local Anti-vivisection Society which had been formed in the village by the Vicar’s wife a year ago. Up to now
there had been little scope in the village for their activities, though they had all much enjoyed the monthly meetings at which they had had tea and cakes and discussed the various village
scandals. But now, as the Vicar’s wife said, was the Time to Act. They had heard of Mr Galileo Simpkins’ skeleton and bottled frogs and they thought that the local Anti-vivisection
Society should approach him and demand from him a guarantee that he would not in his researches touch the hair of the head of any living animal. Also they wanted an opportunity of inspecting the
mysterious lab of which they had heard so much. Things in the village had been rather dull lately and like the Outlaws they welcomed any fresh diversion. . . .
    They were approaching the front door, meaning to ring and ask to see Mr Simpkins in the normal fashion of callers. But to reach the front door they had to pass the window of the lab and it
proved far too thrilling to be passed. The Outlaws, neatly hidden behind the screen, were