eaten something that disagrees with them
before they are quite sure of the fell truth.

So he said, 'What's up, Dentist, old man?' quite kindly and like a
perfect knight, though, of course, he was annoyed with Denny. It is
sickening when people turn pale in the middle of a game and everything
is spoiled, and you have to go home, and tell the spoiler how sorry you
are that he is knocked up, and pretend not to mind about the game being
spoiled.

Denny said, 'Nothing', but Oswald knew better.

Then Alice said, 'Let's rest a bit, Oswald, it IS hot.'

'Sir Oswald, if you please, Plain Pilgrim,' returned her brother
dignifiedly. 'Remember I'm a knight.'

So then we sat down and had lunch, and Denny looked better. We played
adverbs, and twenty questions, and apprenticing your son, for a bit in
the shade, and then Dicky said it was time to set sail if we meant to
make the port of Canterbury that night. Of course, pilgrims reck not of
ports, but Dicky never does play the game thoughtfully.

We went on. I believe we should have got to Canterbury all right and
quite early, only Denny got paler and paler, and presently Oswald saw,
beyond any doubt, that he was beginning to walk lame.

'Shoes hurt you, Dentist?' he said, still with kind striving
cheerfulness.

'Not much--it's all right,' returned the other.

So on we went--but we were all a bit tired now--and the sun was hotter
and hotter; the clouds had gone away. We had to begin to sing to keep up
our spirits. We sang 'The British Grenadiers' and 'John Brown's Body',
which is grand to march to, and a lot of others. We were just starting
on 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching', when Denny stopped
short. He stood first on one foot and then on the other, and suddenly
screwed up his face and put his knuckles in his eyes and sat down on
a heap of stones by the roadside. When we pulled his hands down he was
actually crying. The author does not wish to say it is babyish to cry.

'Whatever is up?' we all asked, and Daisy and Dora petted him to get him
to say, but he only went on howling, and said it was nothing, only would
we go on and leave him, and call for him as we came back.

Oswald thought very likely something had given Denny the stomach-ache,
and he did not like to say so before all of us, so he sent the others
away and told them to walk on a bit.

Then he said, 'Now, Denny, don't be a young ass. What is it? Is it
stomach-ache?'

And Denny stopped crying t