hat summer. He did not really
care about the rod--he was not even thinking of it. He heard all the
sounds of the house as he sat there. He could tell all the clocks, that
one booming softly the half hours was in his mother's bedroom, there
was a rattle and a whirr and there came the cuckoo-clock on the stairs,
there was the fast, cheap careless chatter of the little clock on the
schoolroom mantelpiece, there was the whisper of Miss Jones's watch
which she had put out on the table to mark the time of Mary's sewing by.
There were all the regular sounds of the house. The distant closing of
doors, deep down in the heart of the house someone was using a sewing
machine somewhere, voices came up out of the void and faded again,
someone whistled, someone sang. His gloom increased. He was exchanging a
world he knew for a world that he did not know, and he could not escape
the feeling that he was, in some way, insulting this world that he was
leaving. He bothered himself all the afternoon with unnecessary stupid
affairs to cover his deep discomfort. He whistled carelessly and out of
tune, he poked the fire and walked about. He was increasingly aware
of Hamlet and Mary. Mary was determined so hard that she would show no
emotion at all that she was a painful sight to witness. She scarcely
spoke to him, and only answered in monosyllables if he asked her
something.

And Hamlet had suddenly discovered that the atmosphere of the house was
unusual. He had expected, in the first place, to be taken for a walk
that afternoon; then his master was very busy doing nothing, which was
most unusual. Then at tea time his worst suspicions were confirmed.
Jeremy suddenly made a fuss of him, pouring his tea into his saucer,
giving him a piece of bread and jam and an extra lump of sugar. Hamlet
drank his tea and ate his bread and jam thoughtfully. They were very
nice, but what was the matter?

He looked up through his hair and discovered that his master's eyes were
restless and unhappy, and that he was thinking of things that disturbed
him. He went away to the fire and, sitting on his haunches, gazing in
his metaphysical way at the flames, considered the matter. Jeremy came
over to him and, drawing him back to him, laid his head upon his knee
and so held him. Hamlet did not move, save occasionally to sigh, and,
once or twice, to snap in a sudden way that he had at an imaginary fly.
He thought that in all probability his master had been punished for