.

"This yer '_ome_?" pursued Bagg.

Billy nodded.

"Wisht _I_ was 'ome!" sighed Bagg. "I say," he added, "which way's
'ome from 'ere?"

"You mean Skipper 'Zekiel's cottage?"

"I mean Lun'on," said Bagg.

"Don't know," Billy answered. "You better ask Uncle Tommy Luff. He'll
tell you."

Bagg had been exported for adoption. The gutters of London are never
exhausted of their product of malformed little bodies and souls; they
provide waifs for the remotest colonies of the empire. So, as it
chanced, Bagg had been exported to Newfoundland--transported from his
native alleys to this vast and lonely place. Bagg was scrawny and
sallow, with bandy legs and watery eyes and a fantastic cranium; and
he had a snub nose, which turned blue when a cold wind struck it. But
when he was landed from the mail-boat he found a warm welcome, just
the same, from Ruth Rideout, Ezekiel's wife, by whom he had been taken
for adoption.

* * * * *

Later in the day, old Uncle Tommy Luff, just in from the fishing
grounds off the Mull, where he had been jigging for stray cod all day
long, had moored his punt to the stage-head, and he was now coming up
the path with his sail over his shoulder, his back to the wide,
flaring sunset. Bagg sat at the turn to Squid Cove, disconsolate. The
sky was heavy with glowing clouds, and the whole earth was filled with
a glory such as he had not known before.

"Shall I arst the ol' beggar when 'e gets 'ere?" mused Bagg.

Uncle Tommy looked up with a smile.

"I say, mister," piped Bagg, when the old man came abreast, "which
way's 'ome from 'ere?"

"Eh, b'y?" said Uncle Tommy.

"'Ome, sir. Which way is 'ome from 'ere?"

In that one word Bagg's sickness of heart expressed itself--in the
quivering, wistful accent.

"Is you 'Zekiel Rideout's lad?" said Uncle Tommy.

"Don't yer make no mistake, mister," said Bagg, somewhat resentfully.
"I ain't nothink t' nobody."

"I knowed you was that lad," Uncle Tommy drawled, "when I seed the
size o' you. Sure, b'y, you knows so well as me where 'Zekiel's place
is to. 'Tis t' the head o' Burnt Cove, there, with the white railin',
an' the tater patch aft o' the place where they spreads the fish.
Sure, you knows the way home."

"I mean Lun'on, mister," Bagg urged.

"Oh, home!" said Uncle Tommy. "When I was a lad like you, b'y, just
here from the West Country, me fawther told me if I steered a course
out o' the tickle an