ld hardly help treading on some bit of George's foot, if
he had to move about at all within ten yards of where George was sitting,
suggesting that George never ought to come into an ordinary sized boat
with feet that length, and advising him to hang them over the side, as he
would have done before supper, now said: "Oh, I'm so sorry, old chap; I
hope I haven't hurt you."

[Picture: Smoking pipes] And George said: "Not at all;" that it was his
fault; and Harris said no, it was his.

It was quite pretty to hear them.

We lit our pipes, and sat, looking out on the quiet night, and talked.

George said why could not we be always like this--away from the world,
with its sin and temptation, leading sober, peaceful lives, and doing
good. I said it was the sort of thing I had often longed for myself; and
we discussed the possibility of our going away, we four, to some handy,
well-fitted desert island, and living there in the woods.

Harris said that the danger about desert islands, as far as he had heard,
was that they were so damp: but George said no, not if properly drained.

And then we got on to drains, and that put George in mind of a very funny
thing that happened to his father once. He said his father was
travelling with another fellow through Wales, and, one night, they
stopped at a little inn, where there were some other fellows, and they
joined the other fellows, and spent the evening with them.

They had a very jolly evening, and sat up late, and, by the time they
came to go to bed, they (this was when George's father was a very young
man) were slightly jolly, too. They (George's father and George's
father's friend) were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds.
They took the candle, and went up. The candle lurched up against the
wall when they got into the room, and went out, and they had to undress
and grope into bed in the dark. This they did; but, instead of getting
into separate beds, as they thought they were doing, they both climbed
into the same one without knowing it--one getting in with his head at the
top, and the other crawling in from the opposite side of the compass, and
lying with his feet on the pillow.

There was silence for a moment, and then George's father said:

"Joe!"

"What's the matter, Tom?" replied Joe's voice from the other end of the
bed.

"Why, there's a man in my bed," said George's father; "here's his feet on
my pillow."

"Well, it's an extraordinary thing, To