to go down and see her."

"And that's why you want to make out that he ain't looking well."

"No more he is. I think he had better go."

"Well, I don't care, if you can find the money," said his father.

"I'll manage that," said his mother; and so it was agreed that Diamond
should go to Sandwich.

I will not describe the preparations Diamond made. You would have
thought he had been going on a three months' voyage. Nor will I describe
the journey, for our business is now at the place. He was met at the
station by his aunt, a cheerful middle-aged woman, and conveyed in
safety to the sleepy old town, as his father called it. And no wonder
that it was sleepy, for it was nearly dead of old age.

Diamond went about staring with his beautiful goggle-eyes, at the quaint
old streets, and the shops, and the houses. Everything looked very
strange, indeed; for here was a town abandoned by its nurse, the sea,
like an old oyster left on the shore till it gaped for weariness. It
used to be one of the five chief seaports in England, but it began to
hold itself too high, and the consequence was the sea grew less and less
intimate with it, gradually drew back, and kept more to itself, till at
length it left it high and dry: Sandwich was a seaport no more; the sea
went on with its own tide-business a long way off, and forgot it. Of
course it went to sleep, and had no more to do with ships. That's what
comes to cities and nations, and boys and girls, who say, "I can do
without your help. I'm enough for myself."

Diamond soon made great friends with an old woman who kept a toyshop,
for his mother had given him twopence for pocket-money before he left,
and he had gone into her shop to spend it, and she got talking to him.
She looked very funny, because she had not got any teeth, but Diamond
liked her, and went often to her shop, although he had nothing to spend
there after the twopence was gone.

One afternoon he had been wandering rather wearily about the streets
for some time. It was a hot day, and he felt tired. As he passed the
toyshop, he stepped in.

"Please may I sit down for a minute on this box?" he said, thinking the
old woman was somewhere in the shop. But he got no answer, and sat down
without one. Around him were a great many toys of all prices, from a
penny up to shillings. All at once he heard a gentle whirring somewhere
amongst them. It made him start and look behind him. There were the
sails of a windmill going ro