without waiting for an answer, "and a pencil, and----"

And then I saw it. On the farther side of the road there is a stretch
of short turf, some hundred yards wide; and beyond that an irregular
line of silver birches; and beyond that the blue of distant hills, for
the Common slopes down where the trees begin. Between the silvery wood
and the road, through the midst of the wide belt of turf, and parallel
with the Boundary, ran a river. There was nothing to be much surprised
at, for it was just the kind of river you would expect to see running
through the fields of fairyland. It was a river of grass.

It was the slender-stalked, tufted, not very tall, grey-headed grass
that grows quite generally in open country and wild places. But the
wind and the sun now turned it into a river which ran fast between its
banks of green, its waves silvery grey, quick-flowing waves, gleaming
and dappled, an endless succession. It flowed from somewhere out of
sight in the west, and disappeared to the east over the edge of the
great slope that brings you down to the woods, vanishing, to all
intents and purposes, over the edge of the world.

Without taking my eyes off this astonishing spectacle I stretched out
a hand and, catching "3.7" by the edge of his white smock, told him to
run across the road to the grass and--paddle in it. I said it was
better than motor cars. He made no comment on this but, after glancing
warily up and down the road (for he has been brought up in wholesome
awe of the entire tribe of automobiles), he crossed the Boundary, ran
across the turf and plunged up to his knees in the river.

I cannot be certain, but it is my considered opinion that Apollo
stopped his golden chariot for the space of a whole minute to look