He looked up and his eye caught the blue heraldic shape on the sign-board of the inn.
“And there is our wooden ensign!” he cried, pointing in the same dramatic fashion. “We will go into battle under the banner of the Blue Boar.”
“Loud and prolonged cheers,” said Crane politely, “and now come away and don’t spoil the peroration. Owen wants to potter about the local antiquities, like Mr. Oates. I’m more interested in novelties. Want to look at that machine of yours.”
They began to descend the zig-zag pebbled path fenced and embanked with hedges and flower-beds like a garden grown on a staircase, and at every corner Hood had to remonstrate with the loitering youth.
“Don’t be for ever gazing back on the paradise of pigs,” he said, “or you’ll be turned to a pillar of salt, or possibly of mu
