44 jock's lake. 



tively harmless, so far. The last trip I made with him he 

 was full of ' nectar ' and ' ambrosia ' and the ' feasts of 

 the gods.' We're luckj' if we o-et off with 'cosmos' this 

 time." 



But despite the talk and banter the eating went on, until 

 the hearty breakfast was ended, and Horace ceased from 

 his lal)ors at the frjing-pan, and George, the waijter, gladl}' 

 heard fi'om one and another, " No more! " 



After breakfast Wilkinson returned home with his 

 horses, but leaving his wagon until he should come for 

 us; and as he disappeared in the forest, the Neophyte, 

 experiencing for a moment a sensation of hojne-longing, 

 thought: '' So the curtain drops between us and the outer 

 world, to be raised some days hence, revealing — no one 

 knows what!" He never felt preciscl}" that waj' again, 

 but never failed, in similar circumstances, to feel for an 

 instant a certain sense of loneliness and heli>lessness. 



Now began, in earnest, the real life that we had come to 

 enjoy, — life in a primitive fashion, far from the cares and 

 distractions as well as the luxuries of civilization, cut off 

 from all men but our own chosen company; the life of the 

 savage, with all the bad elements left out, .unconstrained 

 but not lawless, jovial and free but self -respectful, natural 

 but certainly not barbarous; a too short period of alternate 

 work and rest, of sport in lishing, rowing, shooting, 

 swimming and in doing a thousand little things, important 

 on such occasions to be (Tone, but difficult to report, and 

 perhaps of interest only to the actoi's themselves. 



"Wilkinson is a good enough fellow," said Benson, 



