'He's coming along by the road,' said Charlotte. 'He'll be crouching in the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and spring out on us, only you mustn't say I told you, 'cos it's to be a surprise.' 'All right,' I said magnanimously. 'Come on and let's be surprised.' But I could not help feeling that on this day of days even a grizzly felt misplaced and common. Sure enough an undeniable bear sprang out on us as we dropped into the road; then ensued shrieks, growlings, revolver-shots, and unrecorded heroisms, till Edward condescended at last to roll over and die, bulking large and grim, an unmitigated grizzly. It was an understood thing, that whoever took upon himself to be a bear must eventually die, sooner or later, even if he were the eldest born; else, life would have been all strife and carnage, and the Age of Acorns have displaced our hard-won civilisation. This little affair concluded with satisfaction to all parties concerned, we rambled along the road, picking up the defaulting Harold by the way, muffinless now and in his right and social mind. 'What would you do?' asked Charlotte presently--the book of the moment always dominating her thoughts until it was sucked dry and cast aside,--'What would you do if you saw two lions in the road, one on each side, and you didn't know if they was loose or if they was chained up?' 'Do?' shouted Edward valiantly, 'I should--I should--I should--' His boastful accents died away into a mumble: 'Dunno what I should do.' 'Shouldn't do anything,' I observed after consideration; and, really, it would be difficult to arrive at a wiser conclusion. 'If it came to _doing_,' remarked Harold reflectively, 'the lions would do all the doing there was to do, wouldn't they?' 'But if they was _good_ lions,' rejoined Charlotte, 'they would do as they would be done by.' 'Ah, but how are you to know a good lion from a bad one?' said Edward. 'The books don't tell you at all, and the lions ain't marked any different.' 'Why, there aren't any good lions,' said Harold hastily. 'O yes, there are, heaps and heaps,' contradicted Edward. 'Nearly all the lions in the story-books are good lions. There was Androcles' lion, and St. Jerome's lion, and--and--and the Lion and the Unicorn----' 'He beat the Unicorn,' observed Harold dubiously, 'all round the town.' 'That _proves_ he was a good lion,' cried Edward triumphantly. 'But the question is, how are you to tell 'em when you see 'em?' '_I_ should ask Martha,' said Harold of the simple creed. Edward snorted contemptuously, then turned to Charlotte. 'Look here,' he said; 'let's play at lions, anyhow, and I'll run on to that corner and be a lion,--I'll be two lions, one on each side of the road,--and you'll come along, and you won't know whether I'm chained up or not, and that'll be the fun!'