His father examined the wreckage of the pews.
While the boy knelt at his task, his thoughts were running on the Pantomime.

He had meant, last night, to recount all its wonders and the wonders of Plymouth; but somehow the words had not come.
After displaying his presents he could find no more to say: and feeling his father's hand laid on his shoulder, had burst into tears and hidden his face in his mother's lap.

He wanted to console them, and they were pitying _him_--why he could not say--but he knew it was so.
And now the Pantomime, Plymouth, everything, seemed to have slipped away from him into a far past.

Only his father and mother had drawn nearer and become more real.

He tried to tell himself one of the old stories; but it fell into pieces like the fragments of coloured glass he was handling, and presently he began to think of the glass in his hands and let the story go.
"On Monday we'll set to work," said his father.