Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/138

126 The sacred stones were fenced about, and our visitors had to pay for admission at a little kiosk by the gate. At the side of the road stood a travel-stained middle-class automobile, with a miscellany of dusty luggage, rugs and luncheon things therein—a family automobile with father no doubt at the wheel. Sir Richmond left his own trim coupé at its tail.

They were impeded at the entrance by a difference of opinion between the keeper of the turnstile and a small but resolute boy of perhaps five or six who proposed to leave the enclosure. The custodian thought that it would be better if his nurse or his mother came out with him.

“She keeps on looking at it,” said the small boy. “It isunt anything. I want to go and clean the car.”

“You won’t SEE Stonehenge every day, young man,” said the custodian, a little piqued.

“It’s only an old beach,” said the small boy, with extreme conviction. “It’s rocks like the seaside. And there isunt no sea.”

The man at the turnstile mutely consulted the doctor.

“I don’t see that he can get into any harm here,” the doctor advised, and the small boy was released from archæology.

He strolled to the family automobile, produced an en-tout-cas pocket-handkerchief and set himself to polish the lamps with great assiduity. The two