Where this sudden inspiration came from, he then had no idea; but come it did, in the very nick of time, and helped him to dry his tears.  The day of destiny also came, and his courage was put to the test.  He knew well enough, of course, that of the operation he would feel nothing.  But the sight of the hard, white, narrow pallet on which he had to lie, the cold glint of the remorseless instruments, the neatly folded packages of lint and cotton-wool, and the faint, horrible smell of chloroform turned him rather sick for a minute.  Then he glanced downwards, with a sense of almost affectionate yearning, at the limb he was about to lose.  “Good-bye, dear old leg!” he murmured, with a little laugh which smothered a rising sob.  “We’ve had some lovely ramps together, but the best of friends must part.”

Afterwards, during the long days of dreary convalescence, he began to feel an interest in what remained of it; and then he found himself taking a sort of aesthetic pleasure in the smooth, beautifully-rounded stump, which really was in its way quite an artistic piece of work.  At last, when the flesh was properly healed, and the white skin growing healthily again around his abbreviated member, he grew eager to make acquaintance with his new leg; for of course it was never intended that he should perform the rest of his earthly pilgrimage with only a leg and a half—­let the added half be of what material it might.  And his excitement may be better imagined than described when, one afternoon, the surgeon came in with a most wonderful object in his arms—­a lovely prop of bright, black, burnished wood, set off with steel couplings and the most fascinating straps you ever saw.  And the best of all was the socket, in which his soft white stump fitted as comfortably as though they had been made for one another—­as, in fact, one of them had been.  It was a little difficult to walk just at first, for Austin was accustomed to begin by throwing out his foot, whereas now he had to begin by moving his thigh; this naturally made him stagger, and for some time he could only get along with the aid of a crutch.  But to be able to walk again at all was a great achievement, and then, if you only looked at it in the proper light, it really was great fun.

There was, however, one person who, probably from a defective sense of humour, was unable to see any fun in it at all.  Aunt Charlotte would have given her very ears for Austin, but her affection was of a somewhat irritable sort, and generally took the form of scolding.  She was not a stupid woman by any means, but there was one thing in the world she never could understand, and that was Austin himself.  He wasn’t like other boys one bit, she always said.  He had such a queer, topsy-turvy way of looking at things; would express the most outrageous opinions with an innocent unconsciousness that made her long to box his ears, and support the most arrant absurdities by arguments that conveyed not the smallest