d of at
the sea, and the shore looked so odd that he could not make up his mind
to stop looking at it.

He had thought it was a sandy shore, but almost at once he saw that it
was not sand but fine shingle, and the discovery of this mistake
surprised him so much that he kept on looking at the shingle through the
little telescope, which showed it quite plainly. And as he looked the
shingle grew coarser; it was stones now--quite decent-sized stones,
large stones, enormous stones.

Something hard pressed against his foot, and he lowered the glass.

He was surrounded by big stones, and they all seemed to be moving; some
were tumbling off others that lay in heaps below them, and others were
rolling away from the beach in every direction. And the place where he
had put down the box was covered with great stones which he could not
move.

Edward was very much upset. He had never been accustomed to great stones
that moved about when no one was touching them, and he looked round for
some one to ask how it had happened.

The only person in sight was another boy in a blue jersey with red
letters on its chest.

'Hi!' said Edward, and the boy also said 'Hi!'

'Come along here,' said Edward, 'and I'll show you something.'

'Right-o!' the boy remarked, and came.

The boy was staying at the camp where the white tents were below the
Grand Redoubt. His home was quite unlike Edward's, though he also lived
with his aunt. The boy's home was very dirty and very small, and nothing
in it was ever in its right place. There was no furniture to speak of.
The servants did not wear white caps with long streamers, because there
were no servants. His uncle was a dock-labourer and his aunt went out
washing. But he had felt just the same pleasure in being shown things
that Edward or you or I might have felt, and he went climbing over the
big stones to where Edward stood waiting for him in a sort of pit among
the stones with the little telescope in his hand.

'I say,' said Edward, 'did you see any one move these stones?'

'I ain't only just come up on to the sea-wall,' said the boy, who was
called Gustus.

'They all came round me,' said Edward, rather pale. 'I didn't see any
one shoving them.'

'Who're you a-kiddin' of?' the boy inquired.

'But I _did_,' said Edward, 'honour bright I did. I was just taking a
squint through this little telescope I've found--and they came rolling
up to me.'

'Let's see what you found,' said Gustus, and E