“It is a very drowsy day,” I said to myself, idly turning over the leaves of the sketchbook to find a blank page. “Why, I thought you were a mile off by this time!” For, to my surprise, the two walkers were back again.
“I came back to remind you,” Arthur said, “that the trains go every ten minutes—”
“Nonsense!” I said. “It isn’t the Metropolitan Railway!”
“It is the Metropolitan Railway,” the Earl insisted. “This is a part of Kensington.”
“Why do you talk with your eyes shut?” said Arthur. “Wake up!”
“I think it’s the heat makes me so drowsy,” I said, hoping, but not feeling quite sure, that I was talking sense. “Am I awake now?”
“I think not,” the Earl judicially pronounced. “What do you think, Doctor? He’s only got one eye open!”
“And he’s snoring like anything!” cried Bruno. “Do wake up, you dear old thing!” And he and Sylvie set to work, rolling the heavy head from side to side, as if its connection with the shoulders was a matter of no sort of importance.
And at last the Professor opened his eyes, and sat up, blinking at us with eyes of utter bewilderment. “Would you have the kindness to mention,” he said, addressing me with his usual old-fashioned courtesy, “whereabouts we are just now—and who we are, beginning with me?”
I thought it best to begin with the children. “This is Sylvie, Sir; and this is Bruno.”
“Ah, yes! I know them well enough!” the old man murmured. “It’s myself I’m most anxious about. And perhaps you’ll be good enough to mention, at the same time, how I got here?”
“A harder problem occurs to me,” I ventured to say: “and that is, how you’re to get back again.”
“True, true!” the Professor replied. “That’s the Problem, no doubt. Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one. Viewed as a portion of one’s own biography, it is, I must admit, very distressing!” He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle, “As to myself, I think you mentioned that I am—”
“Oo’re the Professor!” Bruno shouted in his ear. “Didn’t oo know that? Oo’ve come from Outland! And it’s ever so far away from here!”
The Professor leapt to his feet with the agility of a boy. “Then there’s no time to lose!” he exclaimed anxiously. “I’ll just ask this guileless peasant, with his brace of buckets that contain (apparently) water, if he’ll be so kind as to direct us. Guileless peasant!” he proceeded in a louder voice. “Would you tell us the way to Outland?”
The guileless peasant turned with a sheepish grin. “Hey?” was all he said.
“The—way—to—Outland!” the Professor repeated.
The guileless peasant set down his buckets and considered. “Ah dunnot—”
“I ought to mention,” the Professor hastily put in, “that whatever you say will be used in evidence against you.”
The guileless peasant instantly resumed his buckets. “Then ah says nowt!” he answered briskly, and walked away at a great pace.
The children gazed sadly at the rapidly vanishing figure. “He goes very quick!” the Professor said with a sigh. “But I know that was the right thing to say. I’ve studied your English Laws. However, let’s ask this next man that’s coming. He is not guileless, and he is not a peasant—but I don’t know that either point is of vital importance.”
It was, in fact, the Honourable Eric Lindon, who had apparently fulfilled his task of escorting Lady Muriel home, and was now strolling leisurely up and down the road outside the house, enjoying a solitary cigar.
“Might I trouble you, Sir, to tell us the nearest way to Outland!” Oddity as he was, in outward appearance, the Professor was, in that essential nature which no outward disguise could conceal, a thorough gentleman.
And, as such, Eric Lindon accepted him instantly. He took the cigar from his mouth, and delicately shook off the ash, while he considered. “The name sounds strange to me,” he said. “I doubt if I can help you.”
“It is not very far from Fairyland,” the Professor suggested.
Eric Lindon’s eyebrows were slightly raised at these words, and an amused smile, which he courteously tried to repress, flitted across his handsome face. “A trifle cracked!” he muttered to himself. “But what a jolly old patriarch it is!” Then he turned to the children. “And can’t you help him, little folk?” he said, with a gentleness of tone that seemed to win their hearts at once. “Surely you know all about it?
‘How many miles to Babylon?
Threescore miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, and back again!’ ”
To my surprise, Bruno ran forwards to him, as if he were some old friend of theirs, seized the disengaged hand and hung on to it with both of his own: and there stood this tall dignified officer in the middle of the road, gravely swinging a little boy to and fro, while Sylvie stood ready to push him, exactly as if a real swing had suddenly been provided for their pastime.
“We don’t want to get to Babylon, oo know!” Bruno explained as he swung.
“And it isn’t candlelight: it’s daylight!” Sylvie added, giving the swing a push of extra vigour, which nearly took the whole machine off its balance.
By this time it was clear to me that Eric Lindon was quite unconscious of my presence. Even the Professor and the children seemed to have lost sight of me: and I stood in the midst of the group, as unconcernedly as a ghost, seeing but unseen.
“How perfectly isochronous!” the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. He had his watch in his hand, and was carefully counting Bruno’s oscillations. “He measures time quite as accurately as a pendulum!”
“Yet even pendulums,” the good-natured young soldier observed, as he carefully released his hand from Bruno’s grasp, “are not a joy forever! Come, that’s enough for one bout, little man! Next time we meet, you shall have another. Meanwhile you’d better take
