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I stumbled up a steep little bit of slippery grass, and told myself that in three-quarters of an hour I would get some of my own back again. He little knew how heavy that bag could become.

“They say,” said John to the heavens, “that if you have weights in your hands you can jump these little eminences much more easily. I suppose one hand alone doesn’t do. What a pity he didn’t tell me before–I would have lent him another bag with pleasure.”

“Nobody likes blackberries more than I do,” said John. “But even I would hesitate to come out here on a hot afternoon and fill a great brown bag with blackberries, and then carry them eight miles home. Besides, it looks rather greedy…. I beg your pardon, my lad, I didn’t understand. You are taking them home to your aged mother? Of course, of course. Very commendable. If I had a penny, I would lend it to you. No, I only have a sixpence on me, and I have to give that to the little fellow who is carrying my bag over the cliffs for me…. Yes, I picked him up about a couple of miles back. He has mud all up his trousers, I know.”

“Half an hour more,” I told myself, and went on doggedly, my right shoulder on fire.

“Dear, dear,” he said solicitously, “how lopsided the youth of to-day is getting. Too much lawn-tennis, I suppose. How much better the simply healthy exercises of our forefathers; the weightlifting after lunch, the–“

He was silent for ten minutes, and then broke out rapturously once more.

“What a heavenly day! I AM glad we didn’t bring a bag–it would have spoilt it altogether. We can easily borrow some slippers, and it will be jolly walking back by moonlight. Now, if you had had your way–“

“One minute more,” I said joyfully; “and oh, my boy, how glad I am we brought a bag. What a splendid idea of yours! By the way, you haven’t said much lately. A little tired by the walk?”

“I make it TWO minutes,” said John.

“Half a minute now…. There! And may I never carry the confounded thing another yard.”

I threw the bag down and fell upon the grass. The bag rolled a yard or two away. Then it rolled another yard, slipped over the edge, and started bouncing down the cliff. Finally it leapt away from the earth altogether, and dropped two hundred feet into the sea.

“MY bag,” said John stupidly.

And that did for me altogether.

“I don’t care a hang about your bag,” I cried. “And I don’t care a hang if I’ve lost my pyjamas and my best shoes and my only razor. And I’ve been through an hour’s torture for nothing, and I don’t mind that. But oh!–to think that you aren’t going to have YOUR hour–“

“By Jove, neither I am,” said John, and he sat down and roared with laughter.