So they had tea, and talked cricket.

"Any idea what you mean to do?" Martingale asked several times, and at last Edward answered him.

"What I mean to do," he said, "is what I always meant to do. I mean to be a farmer, and hunt, and shoot, and grow flowers. I think I shall specialize on sunflowers. They're so satisfying."

"More than you are," said Vernon. "Mean to say you're going to buy a farm and ruin yourself the moment you've got a few half-crowns to ruin yourself with?"

"I am going to be a farmer," said Basingstoke, "but first I am going to see life."

"Life? But you were always so. . . ."

"I mean that"—Edward indicated the sunshine outside—"not getting drunk and being disreputable. I can't think why the deuce-dickens[6] that sort of beastliness is always called seeing life. As if life were all gas, and wining, and electric light, and the things you don't talk about before ladies. No, my boy, I'm going out into the unknown—not into the night, because it happens to be afternoon—and I thought I'd just come and clasp that hand and gaze once into those eyes before I set my foot on the untrodden path of adventure. Farewell, Vernon of Martingale, good knight and true! Who knows when we shall meet again?"

[6]

"I don't, anyhow," said Vernon, "and that's why you're not going till the day after to-morrow, and why I insist on knowing what you mean by seeing life—and why you're going to stay till to-morrow, anyhow."

"Heaven forbid that I should criticize another man's tastes," Edward sighed, "or deprive him of any innocent enjoyment. If you want me to stay—well, I'll stay—till to-morrow. And as for what I mean by seeing life—well, I should have thought even you would have understood that. I'm going to get a stick, and a knapsack, and a dog, and a different kind of hat, and some very large boots with nails, and a new suit, only I shall wear it all night before I wear it all day. Oh, Vernon, can't you guess my simple secret?"

"He calls a walking-tour seeing life!" Vernon[7] pointed out. "And who's going with you and where are you going? The Hartz Mountains?—the Carpathians?—Margate?—Trouville? What?"

[7]

"The person who is going with me," said Edward, "is the dog whom we haven't yet bought. 

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