Whereat Magnus, surprised at the rapid flight of the enemy, checked his upward career, and not only did that, but, assaying to take a seat on the grass, began to slide at a considerable pace, and in a sitting posture, downwards, until, in fact, he was providentially brought up short by the very rock under which his friend rested. "_Facilis descensus Averni_," observed Joe, making a brilliant sally in a foreign tongue. The remark was followed by instant gloom. It was too painfully suggestive of the heathen deities. Besides, Magnus had nearly smashed himself against the rock, and had to be brought round with more cold boiled eggs and damsons. After this the ascent was resumed in a more rational way. They accomplished a quarter of a mile in the phenomenal time of two hours, during which period they sat down fourteen times, drank at twenty-one streams, fell on their noses about eighty times, and wished a hundred times they had never heard the name of Snowdon. "I thought you said there was a `thingamy' all the way up?" said Joe. "So there is--we're on it," said Magnus minor. "Oh," said Joe. He had previously had some misgivings that he was growing shortsighted, but he was convinced of it now. At the rate at which they were going there was every prospect of getting to the top of the first ridge about three o'clock on the following afternoon. But Magnus minor and my brother Joe were fellows who preferred doing a thing thoroughly--even though speed had to be sacrificed to the thoroughness. So they pegged on, detesting this mountain as if it had been Olympus itself, and making a material difference in the level of the lakes below by the number of tributary streams they tried to drink up by the way. At last they actually began to get up a bit. "How far now?" said Joe, lying on his back with his coat off, his shirt- sleeves turned up, his collar off, and his braces slack. "Just about there," said Magnus minor. He spoke figuratively, of course. They were a quarter of the way up, perhaps. "I don't believe this beast is what-you-may-call-him at all. It strikes me we ought to have turned to the--you know." "It looks like him," said Magnus. "Anyhow, it'll do for him." "I'd like to do for him," growled Joe. They went on presently, in shocking tempers, both of them. They loathed that mountain, and yet neither liked to propose to go back. That is the way in which a good many mountains are climbed. Magnus got riled with Joe for not giving in--he was the elder, and it was his business to begin. Joe, on the other hand, never thought so ill of Magnus as when he saw him pegging up twenty yards ahead, never giving him (Joe) time to catch up. He made faces at him behind his back, and tried to think of all the caddish things he had done since he came to the school. But it was no good. As sure as ever Joe tried artfully to cut a corner or "put it on" for a yard or two, Magnus, on ahead, cut a corner and put it on too.