fins of your own make to a bustling thronging
crowd of your own creation--there were points about the game, it cannot
be denied, though it seemed scarce in harmony with this radiant
wind-swept morning!

'And Edward, where is he?' I questioned again.

'He's coming along by the road,' said Charlotte. 'He'll be crouching in
the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and
spring out on us, only you mustn't say I told you, 'cos it's to be a
surprise.'

'All right,' I said magnanimously. 'Come on and let's be surprised.' But
I could not help feeling that on this day of days even a grizzly felt
misplaced and common.

Sure enough an undeniable bear sprang out on us as we dropped into the
road; then ensued shrieks, growlings, revolver-shots, and unrecorded
heroisms, till Edward condescended at last to roll over and die, bulking
large and grim, an unmitigated grizzly. It was an understood thing, that
whoever took upon himself to be a bear must eventually die, sooner or
later, even if he were the eldest born; else, life would have been all
strife and carnage, and the Age of Acorns have displaced our hard-won
civilisation. This little affair concluded with satisfaction to all
parties concerned, we rambled along the road, picking up the defaulting
Harold by the way, muffinless now and in his right and social mind.

'What would you do?' asked Charlotte presently--the book of the moment
always dominating her thoughts until it was sucked dry and cast
aside,--'What would you do if you saw two lions in the road, one on each
side, and you didn't know if they was loose or if they was chained up?'

'Do?' shouted Edward valiantly, 'I should--I should--I should--' His
boastful accents died away into a mumble: 'Dunno what I should do.'

'Shouldn't do anything,' I observed after consideration; and, really, it
would be difficult to arrive at a wiser conclusion.

'If it came to _doing_,' remarked Harold reflectively, 'the lions would
do all the doing there was to do, wouldn't they?'

'But if they was _good_ lions,' rejoined Charlotte, 'they would do as
they would be done by.'

'Ah, but how are you to know a good lion from a bad one?' said Edward.
'The books don't tell you at all, and the lions ain't marked any
different.'

'Why, there aren't any good lions,' said Harold hastily.

'O yes, there are, heaps and heaps,' contradicted Edward. 'Nearly all
the lions in the story-books are good lions. There was Androcles