was the prey of despair. He drove in to Maidstone
one day. When we asked him where he was going, he said--

'To get my hair cut: if I keep it this length I shall certainly tear it
out by double handfuls in the extremity of my anguish every time I think
of those innumerable Antiquities.'

But we found out afterwards that he really went to borrow china and
things to give the Antiquities their tea out of; though he did have his
hair cut too, because he is the soul of truth and honour.

Oswald had a very good sort of birthday, with bows and arrows as well as
other presents. I think these were meant to make up for the pistol that
was taken away after the adventure of the fox-hunting. These gave us
boys something to do between the birthday-keeping, which was on the
Saturday, and the Wednesday when the Antiquities were to come.

We did not allow the girls to play with the bows and arrows, because
they had the cakes that we were cut off from: there was little or no
unpleasantness over this.

On the Tuesday we went down to look at the Roman place where the
Antiquities were going to dig. We sat on the Roman wall and ate nuts.
And as we sat there, we saw coming through the beet-field two labourers
with picks and shovels, and a very young man with thin legs and a
bicycle. It turned out afterwards to be a free-wheel, the first we had
ever seen.

They stopped at a mound inside the Roman wall, and the men took their
coats off and spat on their hands.

We went down at once, of course. The thin-legged bicyclist explained his
machine to us very fully and carefully when we asked him, and then we
saw the men were cutting turfs and turning them over and rolling them up
and putting them in a heap. So we asked the gentleman with the thin legs
what they were doing. He said--

'They are beginning the preliminary excavation in readiness for
to-morrow.'

'What's up to-morrow?' H. O. asked.

'To-morrow we propose to open this barrow and examine it.'

'Then YOU'RE the Antiquities?' said H. O.

'I'm the secretary,' said the gentleman, smiling, but narrowly.

'Oh, you're all coming to tea with us,' Dora said, and added anxiously,
'how many of you do you think there'll be?'

'Oh, not more than eighty or ninety, I should think,' replied the
gentleman.

This took our breath away and we went home. As we went, Oswald,
who notices many things that would pass unobserved by the light and
careless, saw Denny frowning hard. So he said, 'What