like your
papa, Sir Bevis, and his land is his own), the same old gentleman who is
so fond of Kapchack, whose palace is in his orchard. Well, the waggon
went up on the hills, where the men had dug up some flints which had
been lying quite motionless in the ground for so many thousand years
that nobody could count them. There were at least five thousand flints,
and the waggon went jolting down the hill and on to the road, and as it
went the flints tried to get out, but they could not manage it, none but
one flint, which was smaller than the rest.

"This one flint, of all the five thousand, squeezed out of a hole in the
bottom of the waggon, and fell on the dust in the road, and was left
there. There was not much traffic on the road (it is the same, dear,
that goes to Southampton, where the ships are), so that it remained
where it fell. Only one waggon came by with a load of hay, and had the
wheel gone over the flint of course it would have been crushed to
pieces. But the waggoner, instead of walking by his horses, was on the
grass at the side of the road talking to a labourer in the field, and
his team did not pass on their right side of the road, but more in the
middle, and so the flint was not crushed.

"In the evening, when it was dark, a very old and very wealthy gentleman
came along in his dog-cart, and his horse, which was a valuable one,
chanced to slip on the flint, which, being sharp and jagged, hurt its
hoof, and down the horse fell. The elderly gentleman and his groom, who
was driving, were thrown out; the groom was not hurt, but his master
broke his arm, and the horse broke his knees. The gentleman was so angry
that no sooner did he get home than he dismissed the groom, though it
was no fault of his, for how could he see the flint in the night? Nor
would he give the man a character, and the consequence was he could not
find another place. He soon began to starve, and then he was obliged to
steal, and after a while he became a burglar.

"One night he entered a house in London, and was getting on well, and
stealing gold watches and such things, when somebody opened the door
and tried to seize him. Pulling out his pistol, he shot his assailant
dead on the spot, and at once escaped, and has not since been heard of,
though you may be sure if he is caught he will be hung, and they are
looking very sharp after him, because he stole a box with some papers in
it which are said to be of great value. And the person he