Page:The golden age.djvu/332

THE GOLDEN AGE When a crab has lost a leg, his gait is still more awkward than his wont, till Time and healing Nature make him totus teres atque rotundus once more. We straggled back from the station disjointedly; Harold, who was very silent, sticking close to me, his last slender prop, while the girls in front, their heads together, were already reckoning up the weeks to the holidays. Home at last, Harold suggested one or two occupations of a spicy and contraband flavour, but though we did our manful best there was no knocking any interest out of them. Then I suggested others, with the same want of success. Finally we found ourselves sitting silent on an upturned wheelbarrow, our chins on our fists, staring haggardly into the raw new conditions of our changed life, the ruins of a past behind our backs.

And all the while Selina and Charlotte were busy stuffing Edward's rabbits with unwonted forage, bilious and green; polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved and swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting materials for new bows and arrows, whips, boats,

250