When he stood still and listened he could hear the friends of his youth at play, and they seemed to be calling: "Are you coming, Corp?
Why does not Corp come back ?" but he could never see them, and when he pressed forward their voices died away.

Then at last he said sadly to his boy: "I shall never be able to show you the Lair, for I cannot find the way to it." And the boy was touched, and he said: "Take my hand, father, and I will lead you to the Lair; I found the way long ago for myself." It took Tommy about two seconds to see all this, and perhaps another half-minute was spent in sad but satisfactory contemplation of it.
Then he felt that, for the best effect, Corp's home life was too comfortable; so Gavinia ran away with a soldier.

He was now so sorry for Corp that the tear rolled down.

But at the same moment he saw how the effect could be still further heightened by doing away with his friend's rude state of health, and he immediately jammed him between the buffers of two railway carriages, and gave him a wooden leg.

It was at this point that a lady who had kept her arms still too long rocked them frantically, then said, with cutting satire: "Are you not feeling well, or have you hurt yourself?
You seem to be very lame." And Tommy woke with a start, to see that he was hobbling as if one of his legs were timber to the knee.
"It is nothing," he said modestly.