erdone, it was not a moment to be critical.
As we tramped along, I promised him I would ask Farmer Larkin not to
kill any more pigs till he came back for the holidays, and he said he
would send me a proper catapult,--the real lethal article, not a kid's
plaything. Then suddenly, when we were about half-way down, one of the
girls fell a-snivelling.

The happy few who dare to laugh at the woes of sea-sickness will perhaps
remember how, on occasion, the sudden collapse of a fellow-voyager
before their very eyes has caused them hastily to revise their
self-confidence and resolve to walk more humbly for the future. Even so
it was with Edward, who turned his head aside, feigning an interest in
the landscape. It was but for a moment; then he recollected the hat he
was wearing,--a hard bowler, the first of that sort he had ever owned.
He took it off, examined it, and felt it over. Something about it seemed
to give him strength, and he was a man once more.

At the station, Edward's first care was to dispose his boxes on the
platform so that every one might see the labels and the lettering
thereon. One did not go to school for the first time every day! Then he
read both sides of his ticket carefully; shifted it to every one of his
pockets in turn; and finally fell to chinking of his money, to keep his
courage up. We were all dry of conversation by this time, and could only
stand round and stare in silence at the victim decked for the altar.
And, as I looked at Edward, in new clothes of a manly cut, with a hard
hat upon his head, a railway ticket in one pocket and money of his own
in the other,--money to spend as he liked and no questions asked!--I
began to feel dimly how great was the gulf already yawning betwixt us.
Fortunately I was not old enough to realise, further, that here on this
little platform the old order lay at its last gasp, and that Edward
might come back to us, but it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could
things ever be the same again.

When the train steamed up at last, we all boarded it impetuously with
the view of selecting the one peerless carriage to which Edward might
be intrusted with the greatest comfort and honour; and as each one found
the ideal compartment at the same moment, and vociferously maintained
its merits, he stood some chance for a time of being left behind. A
porter settled the matter by heaving him through the nearest door; and
as the train moved off, Edward's head was thrust out of t