what on earth, or rather, on water, are you driving at?
Where are you going? What's the canoe for?"

"I am going a voyage. But I will tell you all when it is ready.
Meantime, I rely on you to keep silence. The rest think the boat is for
the river."

"I will not say a word. But why did you not have a hide boat?"

"They are not strong enough. They can't stand knocking about."

"If you want to go a voyage (where to, I can't imagine), why not take a
passage on board a ship?"

"I want to go my own way. They will only go theirs. Nor do I like the
company."

"Well, certainly the sailors are the roughest lot I know. Still, that
would not have hurt you. You are rather dainty, Sir Felix!"

"My daintiness does not hurt you."

"Can't I speak?" (sharply)

"Please yourself."

A silence. A cuckoo sang in the forest, and was answered from a tree
within the distant palisade. Felix chopped away slowly and deliberately;
he was not a good workman. Oliver watched his progress with contempt; he
could have put it into shape in half the time. Felix could draw, and
design; he could invent, but he was not a practical workman, to give
speedy and accurate effect to his ideas.

"My opinion is," said Oliver, "that that canoe will not float upright.
It's one-sided."

Felix, usually so self-controlled, could not refrain from casting his
chisel down angrily. But he picked it up again, and said nothing. This
silence had more influence upon Oliver, whose nature was very generous,
than the bitterest retort. He sat up on the sward.

"I will help launch it," he said. "We could manage it between us, if you
don't want a lot of the fellows down here."

"Thank you. I should like that best."

"And I will help you with the cart when you start."

Oliver rolled over on his back, and looked up idly at the white flecks
of cloud sailing at a great height.

"Old Mouse is a wretch not to give me a command," he said presently.

Felix looked round involuntarily, lest any one should have heard; Mouse
was the nick-name for the Prince. Like all who rule with irresponsible
power, the Prince had spies everywhere. He was not a cruel man, nor a
benevolent, neither clever nor foolish, neither strong nor weak; simply
an ordinary, a very ordinary being, who chanced to sit upon a throne
because his ancestors did, and not from any personal superiority.

He was at times much influenced by those around him; at others he took
his own course, right or wrong; at an