nance of a
child playing at keeping shop, "what tobacco is it you would like?"

"Latakia," quoth I, feeling as if I were assisting at a child's game, and
wondering whether I should get anything but make-believe.

But the girl took a dainty little basket from a shelf beside her, went to
a jar, and took out a lot of tobacco and put the filled basket down on
the counter before me, where I could both smell and see that it was
excellent Latakia.

"But you haven't weighed it," said I, "and--and how much am I to take?"

"Why," she said, "I advise you to cram your bag, because you may be going
where you can't get Latakia. Where is your bag?"

I fumbled about, and at last pulled out my piece of cotton print which
does duty with me for a tobacco pouch. But the girl looked at it with
some disdain, and said--

"Dear neighbour, I can give you something much better than that cotton
rag." And she tripped up the shop and came back presently, and as she
passed the boy whispered something in his ear, and he nodded and got up
and went out. The girl held up in her finger and thumb a red morocco
bag, gaily embroidered, and said, "There, I have chosen one for you, and
you are to have it: it is pretty, and will hold a lot."

Therewith she fell to cramming it with the tobacco, and laid it down by
me and said, "Now for the pipe: that also you must let me choose for you;
there are three pretty ones just come in."

She disappeared again, and came back with a big-bowled pipe in her hand,
carved out of some hard wood very elaborately, and mounted in gold
sprinkled with little gems. It was, in short, as pretty and gay a toy as
I had ever seen; something like the best kind of Japanese work, but
better.

"Dear me!" said I, when I set eyes on it, "this is altogether too grand
for me, or for anybody but the Emperor of the World. Besides, I shall
lose it: I always lose my pipes."

The child seemed rather dashed, and said, "Don't you like it, neighbour?"

"O yes," I said, "of course I like it."

"Well, then, take it," said she, "and don't trouble about losing it. What
will it matter if you do? Somebody is sure to find it, and he will use
it, and you can get another."

I took it out of her hand to look at it, and while I did so, forgot my
caution, and said, "But however am I to pay for such a thing as this?"

Dick laid his hand on my shoulder as I spoke, and turning I met his eyes
with a comical expression in them, which warned me a