The Golden Age | Page 5

though I heard my name called faint and shrill behind, there was no
stopping for me. It was only Harold, I concluded, and his legs, though
shorter than mine, were good for a longer spurt than this. Then I heard
it called again, but this time more faintly, with a pathetic break in the
middle; and I pulled up short, recognising Charlotte's plaintive note.
She panted up anon, and dropped on the turf beside me. Neither had
any desire for talk; the glow and the glory of existing on this perfect
morning were satisfaction full and sufficient.
"Where's Harold;" I asked presently.
"Oh, he's just playin' muffin-man, as usual," said Charlotte with
petulance. "Fancy wanting to be a muffin-man on a whole holiday!"
It was a strange craze, certainly; but Harold, who invented his own
games and played them without assistance, always stuck staunchly to a
new fad, till he had worn it quite out. Just at present he was a
muffin-man, and day and night he went through passages and up and
down staircases, ringing a noiseless bell and offering phantom muffins
to invisible wayfarers. It sounds a poor sort of sport; and yet--to pass
along busy streets of your own building, for ever ringing an imaginary
bell and offering airy muffins 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.
"Oh yes, there are, heaps and heaps," contradicted Edward. "Nearly all
the lions in the story-books are good lions. There was Androcles' lion,
and St. Jerome's lion, and--and--the Lion and the Unicorn--"
"He beat the Unicorn," observed Harold, dubiously, "all round the
town."
"That PROVES he was a good lion," cried Edwards triumphantly. "But

the question is, how are you to tell 'em when you see 'em?"
"I should ask Martha," said Harold of the simple creed.
Edward snorted contemptuously, then turned to Charlotte. "Look here,"
he said; "let's play at lions, anyhow, and I'll run on to that corner and be
a lion,--I'll be two lions, one on each side of the road,--and you'll come
along, and you won't know whether I'm chained up or not, and that'll be
the fun!"
"No, thank you," said Charlotte, firmly; "you'll be chained up till I'm
quite close to you, and then you'll be loose, and you'll tear me in pieces,
and make my frock all dirty, and p'raps you'll hurt me as well. I know
your lions!"
"No, I won't; I swear I won't," protested Edward. "I'll be