And the coachman? Picture to yourself a man very fat and round, like a big ball of butter, with an oily smile, a face like an apple, and a thin caressing voice like that of a cat trying to win her way into the good graces of her mistress. As soon as they saw him, all the boys were tempted to jump into his coach and start away for that place—never found on the ordinary geography class maps—the Country of Nothing-But-Play.
Now, the coach was filled with boys between eight and ten years of age, packed in like herrings in a barrel. They were huddled together so closely that they could hardly breathe. But no one said “Oh!" No one grumbled. The consolation of knowing that in a few hours they would reach a country where there were no books, no schools, no schoolmasters, made them happy and resigned to anything, so that they did not feel hungry, or thirsty or uncomfortable.
As soon as the coach stopped the fat driver turned to Candlewick, and with a thousand smirks and grimaces said to him, "Tell me, my fine lad, do you want to come with us to the finest country in the world?”