170 Make-Beleve

continued the Visitor. ‘‘ He did not want
to leave the garden at all, for he had made
it just what he wished it to be, and he was
afraid that it would change. Things do
change, you know, by merely growing,
and he was more and more unwilling to go
as he looked on his wonderful flowers that
grew on either side of the grey gravelled
paths. By-the-bye, I should have told
you that his garden looked on the sea, just
as this one does, and so to live in it was
like watching the road by which he was
presently to go away.

“He did not want to go, but there was
no choice left him. So he looked at the
high walls he had built, and at the gate
which had so strong a lock. ‘After all,’
he said, ‘the walls are high, and the gate
is strong. Nothing much can happen to
my garden, and if there are changes I will
soon make everything as it is now when I
escape from abroad.’

“So one night he packed up his bag
and slung it over his shoulders. Then he