Eustace came too, as if he wanted the amusement and yet was ashamed
to take it, when he exclaimed, "I say, Harry; isn't this the book
father used to tell us about--that they used to look over?"
Harold came, and stood towering above us with his hands in his
pockets; but when we came to the Temptation of Eve, Dora broke out
into an exclamation that excited my curiosity too much not to be
pursued, though it was hardly edifying.
"Was that such a snake as Harold killed?"
"I have killed a good many snakes," he answered.
"Yes, but I meant the ones you killed when you were a little tiny
boy."
"I don't remember," he said, as if to stop the subject, hating, as he
always did, to talk about himself.
"No, I know you don't," said Dora; "but it is quite true, isn't it,
Eustace?"
"Hardly true that Harold ever was a little tiny boy," I could not
help saying.
"No, he never was _little_," said Eustace. "But it is quite true
about the snakes. I seem to remember it now, and I've often heard my
mother and my Aunt Alice tell of it. It was at the first place where
we were in New South Wales. I came running out screaming, I believe-
-I was old enough to know the danger--and when they went in there was
Harry sitting on the floor, holding a snake tight by the neck and
enjoying its contortions like a new toy."
"Of course," said Harold, "if it were poisonous, which I doubt, the
danger would have been when I let go.
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