the poet, agreed, and sat down on the shady side of a rock with the
watch in one hand, the "Half Holiday" in the other, and his share of the
damsons in his mouth.

"How long have I been?" shouted the athlete, after stumbling up the
slippery grass slope for about five minutes.

"Time's up!" shouted the poet.

Whereat Magnus, surprised at the rapid flight of the enemy, checked his
upward career, and not only did that, but, assaying to take a seat on
the grass, began to slide at a considerable pace, and in a sitting
posture, downwards, until, in fact, he was providentially brought up
short by the very rock under which his friend rested.

"_Facilis descensus Averni_," observed Joe, making a brilliant sally in
a foreign tongue.

The remark was followed by instant gloom. It was too painfully
suggestive of the heathen deities. Besides, Magnus had nearly smashed
himself against the rock, and had to be brought round with more cold
boiled eggs and damsons.

After this the ascent was resumed in a more rational way. They
accomplished a quarter of a mile in the phenomenal time of two hours,
during which period they sat down fourteen times, drank at twenty-one
streams, fell on their noses about eighty times, and wished a hundred
times they had never heard the name of Snowdon.

"I thought you said there was a `thingamy' all the way up?" said Joe.

"So there is--we're on it," said Magnus minor.

"Oh," said Joe. He had previously had some misgivings that he was
growing shortsighted, but he was convinced of it now.

At the rate at which they were going there was every prospect of getting
to the top of the first ridge about three o'clock on the following
afternoon. But Magnus minor and my brother Joe were fellows who
preferred doing a thing thoroughly--even though speed had to be
sacrificed to the thoroughness.

So they pegged on, detesting this mountain as if it had been Olympus
itself, and making a material difference in the level of the lakes below
by the number of tributary streams they tried to drink up by the way.

At last they actually began to get up a bit.

"How far now?" said Joe, lying on his back with his coat off, his shirt-
sleeves turned up, his collar off, and his braces slack.

"Just about there," said Magnus minor.

He spoke figuratively, of course. They were a quarter of the way up,
perhaps.

"I don't believe this beast is what-you-may-call-him at all. It strikes
me we ought to have turned to