Off Ernest Henry started. He could see his father, there in the long
distance, busied with his paper; he could see the nursery table, with
bright-blue and red reels of cotton that nurse had left there; he could
see a discarded railway engine that lay gaping there half-way across,
ready to catch and trip him if he were not careful. His eyes were like
saucers, the hissing noise came from between his teeth, his forehead
frowned. He passed the peacock, he flung contemptuously aside the
proffered corner of the table; he passed, as an Atlantic liner passes
the Eddystone, the table's other end; he was on the last stretch.

Then suddenly he paused. He lifted his head, caught with his eye a pink,
round cloud that sailed against the evening blue beyond the window,
heard the harpist, heard his father turn and exclaim, as he saw him.

He knew, as he stood there, that at last the moment had come. His friend
had returned.

All the room was buzzing with it. The dolls fell in a neglected heap,
the train on the carpet, the fire behind the fender, the reels of cotton
that were on the table--they all knew it.

His friend had returned.

His impulse was, there and then, to sit down.

His friend was whispering: "Come along!... Come along!... Come along!"
He knew that, on his surrender, his father would make sounds like,
"Well, old man, tired, eh? Bed, I suggest." He knew that bed would
follow. Then darkness, then his friend.