"Only when you are young," I remarked. "I believe it was merely the young Roman legionaries who felt like that. I expect the older ones longed to stay in the pleasant Kentish county for fear that by going further they would eventually fare worse." The boy laughed gaily. "No, no, Sir Reginald, they weren't so stuffy as all that! They were out on an adventure, you see, and the adventure-spirit turned everything into a picnic. Therefore when I climb up Restham Hill I like to feel the Roman legions marching beside me, with all the fun of a new World in front of them. They shall be my ghostly companions rather than the stodgy old pilgrims who looked down at their beads and limped on their peas." "But the pilgrims were adventurous too," I argued. "Remember there are adventures of the soul as well as of the body, and to my mind the tramp of the paid legionaries, marching stolidly up the hill in the wake of the Roman eagles, was nothing like so thrilling an adventure as the descent of the same hill by the bands of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The Roman soldier had no individual interests: he was part of a huge system or machine. It mattered little to him personally whether the particular eagle which he followed hovered over Britain or over Gaul." Here Arthur interrupted me. "The pilgrim was part of a huge system also, only his system was not called an Empire, but a Church." "Precisely," I answered; "and there is where the greater adventurousness of the pilgrim comes in; for it is far more exciting to belong to a Church than to an Empire." "My hat!" exclaimed the irrepressible boy; "if a fellow will say that he'll say anything!" "I _will_ say anything," I replied, "often I do, provided, of course, that anything is true." "Or that you think it true," amended Arthur. "Which comes to the same thing, as far as I am concerned," I added. "I do not agree with you in that," said Annabel; "thinking things are so, doesn't make them so." "Morally speaking it does," I argued. "If I think it is wrong to eat meat on a Friday, it is wrong of me to eat it; and if I think it is wrong to play games on a Sunday, it is wrong of me to play them." "Not at all," retorted Annabel; "the cases are absolutely different. It _is_ wrong to play games on a Sunday, and would be just as wrong for you as for anybody else. But as to there being anything wrong in eating meat on a Friday, the idea is absolutely absurd, and nothing that you could think about it would make it an atom less ridiculous." "Annabel, you are simply priceless!" I exclaimed. "I see no pricelessness in that," replied my sister; "I'm only talking common sense." "Not common, Annabel; far from common; sense as rare as it is priceless!" "Oh, Reggie, how silly you are! Isn't he absurd, Mr. Wildacre?"