and see what we are doing there."

"Well," said Clara, laughing, "I think he would miss the boys."

"Not always, my dear," said Dick, "for there are often plenty of boys
there, who come to get taught; and also," said he, smiling, "to learn
boating and swimming. I wish we could stop there: but perhaps we
had better do that coming down the water."

The lock-gates opened as he spoke, and out we went, and on. And as
for Windsor, he said nothing till I lay on my oars (for I was
sculling then) in Clewer reach, and looking up, said, "What is all
that building up there?"

Said he: "There, I thought I would wait till you asked, yourself.
That is Windsor Castle: that also I thought I would keep for you
till we come down the water. It looks fine from here, doesn't it?
But a great deal of it has been built or skinned in the time of the
Degradation, and we wouldn't pull the buildings down, since they were
there; just as with the buildings of the Dung-Market. You know, of
course, that it was the palace of our old mediaeval kings, and was
used later on for the same purpose by the parliamentary commercial
sham-kings, as my old kinsman calls them.''

"Yes," said I, "I know all that. What is it used for now?"

"A great many people live there," said he, "as, with all drawbacks,
it is a pleasant place; there is also a well-arranged store of
antiquities of various kinds that have seemed worth keeping--a
museum, it would have been called in the times you understand so