It was a grilling hot day.

They hadn't an idea which was the way to Snowdon, and nobody seemed to know.
A railway porter said "Second to the right"; but they could see he was humbugging.

As if a mountain _could_ be up a turning! "Let's jack it up," said Magnus, who was feeling a little depressed after the damsons.
"Eh ?" said Joe, "there's no train back to what's-his-name for two hours.
What would it cost to cab it up ?" "Oh, pots," said Magnus.

"I tell you what--we might have a go of ginger-beer somewhere, and see how we feel after that." Whereupon in silence they found out the leading hotel or the place, and expended sixpence apiece on ginger-beer, at threepence a bottle.
Naturally they felt much refreshed after this, and, without condescending to further parley, decided to stroll on; only, as the porter had mentioned a turning to the right, they selected a turning to the left as decidedly more probable.
It may have been Snowdon, or it may not--in any case it was a hill, and a stiff one.
Magnus, the athlete, taking out his watch, said he meant to do it under twenty minutes, and begged Joe to time him.
Joe, the poet, agreed, and sat down on the shady side of a rock with the watch in one hand, the "Half Holiday" in the other, and his share of the damsons in his mouth.
"How long have I been ?" shouted the athlete, after stumbling up the slippery grass slope for about five minutes.
"Time's up!" shouted the poet.
Whereat Magnus, surprised at the rapid flight of the enemy, checked his upward career, and not only did that, but, assaying to take a seat on the grass, began to slide at a considerable pace, and in a sitting posture, downwards, until, in fact, he was providentially brought up short by the very rock under which his friend rested.
"_Facilis descensus Averni_," observed Joe, making a brilliant sally in a foreign tongue.
The remark was followed by instant gloom.

It was too painfully suggestive of the heathen deities.