The Golden Age

powdering the red brick floor with snow from their barbaric bedizenments; and stamping, and crossing, and declaiming, till all was whirl and riot and shout. Harold was frankly afrai

chestnuts popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories drew the awe-stricken circle close? Old Merlin, perhaps, ‘all furred in black sheep-skins, and a russet gown, with a bow and arrows, and bearing wild geese in his hand!’ Or stately Ogier the Dane, recalled from Fa?ry, asking his

hy, was absorbed in ‘clubmen’: a performance consisting[123] in a measured progress round the room arm-in-arm with an imaginary companion of reverend years, with occasional halts at imaginary clubs, where—imaginary steps being leisurely ascended—imaginary papers were glanced at, imaginary scandal was discussed with elderly shakings of the head, and—regrettable to say—imaginary glasses were lifte

ch things as fairies ever really existed. ‘Do you mean to say it’s all lies?’ asked Charlotte[124] bluntly. Miss Smedley deprecated the use of any such unladylike words in any connexion at all. ‘These stories had their origin, m

Charlotte, ‘from what doesn’t exist?’ And sh

‘how can she know anything about it? Why

all rot, too,’ replie

w he thinks he’s going into the Army. If a thing

aching out for the book. But the Wee Folk were under a cloud; sceptical hints had embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch Arthur—second favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant, and an easy first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of tourney and hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved unfortunate; what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful history of Balin and Balan? ‘And he vanished anon,’ I read: ‘and so he heard an horne b

r stork was quite sorry, and moped, and went on, and got very miserable. So they looked about and found a duck, and introduced it to the stork. The duck was a drake, but the stork didn’t mind, and they loved each other and were as jolly as could be. By and by another duck came along—a real she-duck this time—and when

e when there was little leisure to invent appropriate answers, it was delicately inquired of him whether he would like to have a little brother, or perhaps a little sister? He considered the matter carefully in all its bearings, and finally declared for a Newfoundland pup. Any boy more ‘gleg at the uptak’ would have met his pare

1

’ he announced: ‘You’v

ling stoutly. ‘I’m playin’ at something else. Ho

green,’ said Edward, trying persuasion, ‘with a curly

g on the floor. No saurian ever swung a tail so scaly and so curly as his. Clubland was

Charlotte ecstatically; ‘and you can be the Doc

for the door. Edward did likewise, and the hostile forces clashed together on the mat, and for a brief space things were mixed and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery sound of the luncheon-bell restored an instant