“Those delightful things always do happen to other people!”
“It wasn’t very delightful!” said Sydney.
“Not at the time, but you dear old thing, you have really saved a life! That was always our dream!”
“The boy is not at all like our dream!” said Sydney. “He is a horrid little fellow.”
“Oh, he will come right now!”
“If you knew the family, you would very much doubt it.”
“Sydney, why will you go on disenchanting me? I thought the real thing had happened to you at last as a reward for having been truer to our old woman than I.”
“I don’t think you would have thought hanging on that bank much reward,” said Sydney.
“Adventures aren’t nice when they are going on. It is only ‘meminisse juvat’, you know. You must have felt like the man in Ruckert’s Apologue, with the dragon below, and the mice gnawing the root above.”
“My dear, that story kept running in my head, and whenever I looked at the river it seemed to be carrying me away, bank, and stump, and all. I’m afraid it will do so all night. It did, when some hot wine and water they made me have with my dinner sent me to sleep. Then I thought of—