“You look as if something had hurt you,” said the old gentleman. “I like these shavings miles better than newspaper.” He pulled a box of matches from his pocket, and set light to the pyre. It flared up brightly. Then the boy touched him on the shoulder, and pointed first in the direction of Eubœa, and then at himself. A word came into him from a future civilisation. “Swop?” he said gently. “All right,” grumbled the cashier. “I don’t mind. It gives a lot of trouble--altering the books. But I don’t mind, I’m sure. It’s a thirsty night.” For a moment the boy stood motionless; then, with a little cry, leapt into the flames. And his life went to join his beauty and his memory in a land of which we know too little. * * * * * It’s begun to rain. I think I’ll be off. I do hate anachronisms. III. ON SELF-DECEPTION: TOGETHER WITH THE DREAM OF THE DEAN’S PREPARATIONS. This morning, because the air was fresh, and the sun was bright, and I had eaten too much breakfast, it seemed to be an excellent thing to cut all lectures and to loaf in the Backs. Few boats are there in the morning, and I have found, when my canoe takes me out, that the fewer the boats the less the unpleasantness. I can run into a bridge, but a bridge cannot run into me; and a bridge always takes my apologies in a nice spirit. The afternoon loafers on the river are not yet sufficiently educated to understand that a Canadian canoe must go its own way, and that any attempt to control it is a baseness. The other afternoon my canoe got a little humorous. It saw a man on in front of us working hard in one of those vessels that went a thousand miles down the Jordan--or something to that effect. I knew what my canoe would do. It broke into a canter, caught the absolute stranger in the back of the neck, and knocked him into the water. You would have expected the absolute stranger to have come up, breathing the Englishman’s Shortest Prayer. He did not. He apologised for having been in my way, said that it was entirely his own fault, and hoped that he had not inconvenienced me. I shrugged my shoulders and forgave him, with considerable hauteur. But my boat got Remorse badly. It did not want to live any more, and tried to knock its brains out against Clare Bridge. I soothed it, and tied it up. Canadian canoes are such sensitive things.