Since then, it seems to me, Harold has never been quite the same. He comes to see me now and again, and sometimes even he lingers by my side. But there is a note of doubt about him that I do not remember to have noticed before—some of his former spirit would seem to be lacking, and I am forced to wonder sometimes whether Harold is not ageing. And, though it may appear strange, the thought inspires me with a certain regret. I do not like the man, and I should be mad to seek him of my own accord, but in fairness I must acknowledge that in a negative way he has contributed to all the pleasures I have enjoyed. Sunsets and roses and the white light of the stars—I owe my appreciation of them all to Harold; and I know that it is by aid of his keen realism that I have founded the city of my dreams. It will be a grey world when Harold is no more. ON DIGGING HOLES WHEN all the world was young and we were young with it there was no occupation more pleasing to our infant minds than the digging of great holes in that placid and maternal earth that endured the trampling of our childish feet with patience, and betrayed no realisation of the extraordinary miracle of life that had set us dancing in the fields and valleys of the world. As repentant children trace with curious finger on their mother’s foreheads the lines that they themselves have set there, so we followed the furrows on the forehead of our mother Earth with our little spades, smoothing here and deepening there, and not the less contented that our labours had but a vague and illusory aim. Sometimes, perhaps, we had a half-formed ambition to dig to those dim and incredible Antipodes where children walk head downwards, clinging to the earth with their feet, like the flies on the playroom’ ceiling. Sometimes, perhaps, we dug for treasure, immense masses of golden coin, like those memorable hoards described in “Treasure Island” and the “Gold Bug.” Or, again, it might be that we planned vast caves and galleries wherein tawny pirates and swart smugglers might carouse, shocking the echoes with blood-curdling oaths, and drinking boiling rum like Quilp. We dug, in fine.