through the grim gateway; and then we should have arrived, then
we should all dine together, then we should have reached home!
And then--

OW! OW! OW!

Bitter it is to stumble out of an opalescent dream into the cold
daylight; cruel to lose in a second a sea-voyage, an island, and
a castle that was to be practically your own; but cruellest
and bitterest of all to know, in addition to your loss, that the
fingers of an angry aunt have you tight by the scruff of your
neck. My beautiful book was gone too--ravished from my grasp by
the dressy lady, who joined in the outburst of denunciation as
heartily as if she had been a relative--and naught was left me
but to blubber dismally, awakened of a sudden to the harshness of
real things and the unnumbered hostilities of the actual world.
I cared little for their reproaches, their abuse; but I sorrowed
heartily for my lost ship, my vanished island, my uneaten dinner,
and for the knowledge that, if I wanted any angels to play with,
I must henceforth put up with the anaemic, night-gowned
nonentities that hovered over the bed of the Sunday-school child
in the pages of the Sabbath Improver.

I was led ignominiously out of the house, in a pulpy, watery
state, while the butler handled his swing doors with a
stony, impassive countenance, intended for the deception of the
very elect, though it did not deceive me. I knew well enough
that next time he was off duty, and strolled around our way, we
should meet in our kitchen as man to man, and I would punch him
and ask him riddles, and he would teach me tricks with corks and