but full
of things you didn't see every day. Furze summer-houses, for instance,
and a red wall all round it, with holes in it that you might have
walled heretics up in in the olden times. Some of the holes were quite
big enough to have taken a very small heretic. There was a broken swing,
and a fish-pond--but we were on business, and Oswald insisted on reading
the papers.

He said, "Let's go to the sundial. It looks dryer there, my feet are
like ice-houses."

It was dryer because there was a soaking wet green lawn round it, and
round that a sloping path made of little squares of red and white
marble. This was quite waterless, and the sun shone on it, so that it
was warm to the hands, though not to the feet, because of boots. Oswald
called on Albert to read first. Albert is not a clever boy. He is not
one of us, and Oswald wanted to get over the Constitutions. For Albert
is hardly ever amusing, even in fun, and when he tries to show off it is
sometimes hard to bear. He read--

"THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.

"Clarendon (sometimes called Clarence) had only
one constitution. It must have been a very bad
one, because he was killed by a butt of Malmsey.
If he had had more constitutions or better ones he
would have lived to be very old. This is a warning
to everybody."

To this day none of us know how he could, and whether his uncle helped
him.

We clapped, of course, but not with our hearts, which were hissing
inside us, and then Oswald began to read his paper. He had not had a
chance to ask Albert's uncle what the other name of the world-famous Sir
Thomas was, so he had to put him in as Sir Thomas Blank, and make it up
by being very strong on scenes that could be better imagined than
described, and, as we knew that the garden was five hundred years old,
of course he could bring in any eventful things since the year 1400.

He was just reading the part about the sundial, which he had noticed
from the train when we went to Bexley Heath. It was rather a nice piece,
I think.

"Most likely this sundial told the time when Charles the First was
beheaded, and recorded the death-devouring progress of the Great Plague
and the Fire of London. There is no doubt that the sun often shone even
in these devastating occasions, so that we may picture Sir Thomas Blank
telling the time here and remarking--O crikey!"

These last words are what Oswald him