"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.

"Oh 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--the Lion