ilion, over the parterres of budding tulips and across to an
east border gay with heart's-ease, bachelor's buttons, forget-me-nots
and purple honesty. The scent of budding yews met him here, blown
softly across from Captain Runacles' garden. The white butterfly
balanced himself on this odorous breeze, and, rising against it,
skimmed suddenly over the hedge and dropped out of sight.

Now there was set, under an archway in this hedge, a blue door, the
chinks of which were veiled with cobwebs and the panels streaked with
the silvery tracks of snails. By this _pervius usus_ (as Captain
Runacles called it) the two friends had been used to visit each
other, but since the quarrel it had never been opened. No lock had
been fixed upon it, however. Only the passions of two obstinate men
had kept it shut for four years and more.

The child contemplated this door for a minute, then lifted himself on
tip-toe and stretched his hand up towards the rusty latch. It was a
good six inches above his reach.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Nobody was in sight. His eyes
fell on a stack of flower-pots left by Narcissus beside the path.
He fetched one, set it upside-down in front of the door and climbed
atop of it.

This time he reached the latch and lifted it with some difficulty.
His weight pressed the door open and he fell forward, sprawling on
hands and knees, into the next garden.

He picked himself up, and was on the point of fetching a prolonged
howl, but suddenly thought better of it and began to stare instead.

Barely six paces in front of him, and in the centre of a round
garden-bed, a small girl was kneeling. She held a rusty table-knife,
the blade of which was covered with mould; and as she gazed back at
him the boy saw that her face was stained with weeping.

"Hallo!"

"Hallo!"

"I was just thinking of you, little boy, and beginning to despise
you, when plump--in you tumbled."

"But, I say--look here, you know--I've been told what despising is,
and if you despise me you ought to say why."

"Because I've been ordered to. I'm going to do it out of this book
here. Listen: 'A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude,'
and that's only the beginning. Oh, my dear, I'll wither you up--you
just wait a bit!"

She dug the knife viciously into the earth.

"I don't care," said Tristram affably.

"P'r'aps you don't know what 'Don't Care' came to?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, he came to--a place. It was