en wonder." And it was on this path beside the Thames,
that one day last November he made a big friendship. His nurse was
passing a few remarks with a young man who asked the way to my house,
and baby went ahead pursuing his lawful occasions. Curious to know what
it felt like to be a real fish, he was stepping into the river to see
about it, when the young man interfered.

"Leggo my tail," said David wrathfully, then with sudden defiance, "I
got my feet wet anyway, so there!"

"That's so," the young man agreed.

"I say," David grew confident. "Mummie says it's in the paper, so it's
all right."

"What's that, sonny?"

"A little boy what went in to see about some fishes, and that man what
swum and swum, and I saw'd his picture in the paper. So now 'tend you
look de udder way."

"Why, I can't see nothen."

"You _can_ see. The game is for me to jump in, and you swim."

"But I can't swim. I'm a sailor."

"Oh, weally? Then what's your name?"

"It's Billy O'Flynn."

"No, but that's weally my guinea-pig, the pink one--Billy O'Flynn.
You're not a fairy, Billy?"

"Why, what does you know about fairies?"

"Most truthfully, you know? I don't believe in fairies, but then it
pleases mummie."

So Billy sat on his heel making friends with the heaven-born, and Patsy,
the nurse, came behind him, craving with cotton-gloved hands to touch
the sailor's crisp, short, golden hair, and David gravely tried on the
man's peaked cap.

"Yes," Billy agreed, "fairies is rot when there's real gals about, with
rosy cheeks a-blushin' an' cotton gloves."

"Lawks! 'Ow you sailors does fancy yourselves," said Patsy, her shy
fingers drawn by that magnetic gold of the man's hair.

"Climb on my back and ride," said young O'Flynn to David, "I'll be a
fairy horse."

"The cheek of 'im!" jeered Patsy, "fairy 'orse indeed!"

Oh, surely the fairies were very busy about them, tugging at
heartstrings, while Billy and Patsy fell head over ears in love, and my
pet cupid had them both for slaves. David rode Billy home, by his
august command straight into my brown study, where I sat in my lazy
chair.

Was it my voice telling baby to go and get dry feet? Was it my hand
grasping Billy's horny paw? For I heard my roaring canyon, saw my cliffs,
my embattled sculptured cliffs, and once more seemed to walk with Jesse
in Cathedral Grove. I could hear my dear man, speaking across the years,
"Say, youngster, when you sawed off that table leg to make yo