ole for a
flag, being quite delighted to see how it waved in the wind most
triumphantly, looking very like what sailors put up when they take
possession of a desert island.

"Now, for business!" said Mr. Harwood, sitting down on the rock, and
uncovering a prodigious cake, nearly as large as a cheese, which he had
taken the trouble to carry, with great difficulty, up the hill. "I
suppose nobody is hungry after our long walk! Let us see what all the
baskets contain!"

Not a moment was lost in seating themselves on the grass, while the
stores were displayed, amidst shouts of laughter and applause which
generally followed whatever came forth. Sandwiches, or, as Peter Grey
called them, "savages;" gingerbread, cakes, and fruit, all appeared in
turn. Robert Fordyce brought a dozen of hard-boiled eggs, all dyed
different colours, blue, green, pink, and yellow, but not one was white.
Edmund Ashford produced a collection of very sour-looking apples, and
Charles Forrester showed a number of little gooseberry tarts, but when
it became time for Peter's basket to be opened, it contained nothing
except a knife and fork to cut up whatever his companions would give
him!

"Peter! Peter! you shabby fellow!" said Charles Forrester, reaching him
one of his tarts, "you should be put in the tread-mill as a sturdy
beggar!"

"Or thrown down from the top of this precipice," added Harry, giving him
a cake. "I wonder you can look any of us in the face, Peter!"

"I have heard," said Mr. Harwood, "that a stone is shown in Ireland,
called 'the stone of Blarney,' and whoever kisses it, is never
afterwards ashamed of any thing he does. Our friend Peter has probably
passed that way lately!"

"At any rate, I am not likely to be starved to death amongst you all!"
answered the impudent boy, demolishing every thing he could get; and it
is believed that Peter ate, on this memorable occasion, three times more
than any other person, as each of the party offered him something, and
he never was heard to say, "No!"

"I could swallow Arthur's Seat if it were turned into a plum-pudding,"
said he, pocketing buns, apples, eggs, walnuts, biscuits, and almonds,
till his coat stuck out all round like a balloon. "Has any one any thing
more to spare?"

"Did you ever hear," said Mr. Harwood, "that a pigeon eats its own
weight of food every day? Now, I am sure, you and I know one boy in the
world, Peter, who could do as much."

"What is to be done with that pro