erse is rushing down into space,
until, their idleness being detected, they are themselves promptly
impressed for the sacrilegious work, and made to assist in the demolition
of their own temple.

Anne's commands are spoken very sweetly, and are accompanied by the
sweetest of smiles; but they are nevertheless commands, and somehow it
does not occur to any one to disobey them. John--stern, masterful,
authoritative John, who has never been approached with anything more
dictatorial than a timid request since he left Merchant Taylors' School
nineteen years ago, who would have thought that something had suddenly
gone wrong with the laws of Nature if he had been--finds himself hurrying
along the street on his way to a druggist's shop, slackens his pace an
instant to ask himself why and wherefore he is doing so, recollects that
he was told to do so and to make haste back, marvels who could have dared
to tell him to do anything and to make haste back, remembers that it was
Anne, is not quite sure what to think about it, but hurries on. He
"makes haste back," is praised for having been so quick, and feels
pleased with himself; is sent off again in another direction, with
instructions what to say when he gets there. He starts off (he is
becoming used to being ordered about now). Halfway there great alarm
seizes him, for on attempting to say over the message to himself, to be
sure that he has it quite right, he discovers he has forgotten it. He
pauses, nervous and excited; cogitates as to whether it will be safe for
him to concoct a message of his own, weighs anxiously the
chances--supposing that he does so--of being found out. Suddenly, to his
intense surprise and relief, every word of what he was told to say comes
back to him; and he hastens on, repeating it over and over to himself as
he walks, lest it should escape him again.

And then a few hundred yards farther on there occurs one of the most
extraordinary events that has ever happened in that street before or
since: John Ingerfield laughs.

John Ingerfield, of Lavender Wharf, after walking two-thirds of Creek
Lane, muttering to himself with his eyes on the ground, stops in the
middle of the road and laughs; and one small boy, who tells the story to
his dying day, sees him and hears him, and runs home at the top of his
speed with the wonderful news, and is conscientiously slapped by his
mother for telling lies.

All that day Anne works like a heroine, John helping h