g inflexible hedges, all nature,
centrifugal no longer, sprawled flatly in lines out to its farthest
edge, and I felt just like walking out to that terminus, and dropping
quietly off. Then, as I sat there, morosely chewing bits of stick, the
recollection came back to me of certain fascinating advertisements I had
spelled out in the papers--advertisements of great and happy men, owning
big ships of tonnage running into four figures, who yet craved, to
the extent of public supplication, for the sympathetic co-operation of
youths as apprentices. I did not rightly know what apprentices might
be, nor whether I was yet big enough to be styled a youth; but one thing
seemed clear, that, by some such means as this, whatever the intervening
hardships, I could eventually visit all the circuses of the world--the
circuses of merry France and gaudy Spain, of Holland and Bohemia, of
China and Peru. Here was a plan worth thinking out in all its bearings;
for something had presently to be done to end this intolerable state of
things.

Mid-day, and even feeding-time, passed by gloomily enough, till a small
disturbance occurred which had the effect of releasing some of the
electricity with which the air was charged. Harold, it should be
explained, was of a very different mental mould, and never brooded,
moped, nor ate his heart out over any disappointment. One wild
outburst--one dissolution of a minute into his original elements of air
and water, of tears and outcry--so much insulted nature claimed. Then he
would pull himself together, iron out his countenance with a smile, and
adjust himself to the new condition of things.

If the gods are ever grateful to man for anything, it is when he is
so good as to display a short memory. The Olympians were never slow to
recognize this quality of Harold's, in which, indeed, their salvation
lay, and on this occasion their gratitude had taken the practical form
of a fine fat orange, tough-rinded as oranges of those days were wont to
be. This he had eviscerated in the good old-fashioned manner, by biting
out a hole in the shoulder, inserting a lump of sugar therein, and then
working it cannily till the whole soul and body of the orange passed
glorified through the sugar into his being. Thereupon, filled full of
orange-juice and iniquity, he conceived a deadly snare. Having deftly
patted and squeezed the orange-skin till it resumed its original shape,
he filled it up with water, inserted a fresh lump