and your doll-people tidy for dinner.' Queenie
obediently trotted off to the house, and the speaker continued.
'What's all this about Jerry Blunt, boys? I thought he was a sailor?
What in the world has a sailor to do with training bullfinches, I want
to know?'

'Why,' glibly began Alick, his face clearing, for the subject was one
specially dear to him, 'you know Jerry was away on that expedition to
find the North Pole--the one that went so far north. They got to the
Franz Josef Land, the very farthest anybody has ever yet penetrated.
But they failed that time, and Jerry got a frost-bite all through his
own carelessness--he admits that. His right hand and arm above the
elbow had to be taken off. Oh, you needn't shudder, Theo; a man can't
both venture and go scot-free. When the expedition came back they gave
Jerry the sack--turned him off, you know. So he has come back to
Northbourne to settle with his old mother, and of course he is anxious
to turn an honest penny for a living. It seems he knows a rare lot
about training young bullfinches to pipe real tunes. He learned the
trick from a cunning old Frenchman's yarns--a man who was on the
expedition.'

'Yes, and just fancy, Theo!' cut in Geoff excitedly, and forgetting all
his recent twinges of compunction. 'Jerry trains the bullfinches with
a queer little musical instrument, a bird organ it is called. The
notes are as like their own as they can possibly be, Jerry says so. He
is going to show us the one he has got of his own. Old Frenchy, who
taught him how to train, gave him one for himself.'

'What's Jerry Blunt's object in training the birds? How can it be a
living for him?' asked Theo wonderingly. For the moment she, too, had
forgotten the disagreeable events of the morning in the novelty of the
subject.

'Why, he will sell them, of course--sell them to a chap in London who
sells them again. They fetch a good price, I can tell you. And oh,
Theo, listen, _we_ are going to have a trained finch, Alick and I.
We're going to save up, and Jerry has promised to keep a young bird to
train for us. We shall pay him, you know.' Geoff in his elation
jumped up and down on the seat.

'Yes, we are!' said Alick; adding wrathfully, 'and wasn't it a mean,
low trick of Price to refuse us leave to go with Jerry?' He was quite
ready to blaze up again, volcanic-wise, in another fury.

'Well, boys,' Theo spoke quietly and simply, but there was that in her
face and