e saved the parrot seeds. One does not tramp the country
for a month, at Dickie's age, without learning something about seeds.

He got out the knife that should have cut the string of the basket in
the train, opened it and cut the stalk of the moonflower, very carefully
so that none of the seeds should be, and only a few were, lost. He crept
into the house holding the stalk upright and steady as an acolyte
carries a processional cross.

[Illustration: "HE MADE, WITH TRIPLE LINES OF SILVERY SEEDS, A
SIX-POINTED STAR"

[_Page 81_]

The house was quite dark now, but a street lamp threw its light into the
front room, bare, empty, and dusty. There was a torn newspaper on the
floor. He spread a sheet of it out, kneeled by it and shook the
moonflower head over it. The seeds came rattling out--dozens and dozens
of them. They were bigger than sunflower seeds and flatter and rounder,
and they shone like silver, or like the pods of the plant we call
honesty.

"Oh, beautiful, beautiful!" said Dickie, letting the smooth shapes slide
through his fingers. Have you ever played with mother-of-pearl card
counters? The seeds of the moonflower were like those.

He pulled out Tinkler and the seal and laid them on the heap of seeds.
And then knew quite suddenly that he was too tired to travel any further
that night.

"I'll doss here," he said; "there's plenty papers"--he knew by
experience that, as bed-clothes, newspapers are warm, if noisy--"and get
on in the morning afore people's up."

He collected all the paper and straw--there was a good deal littered
about in the house--and made a heap in the corner, out of the way of the
window. He did not feel afraid of sleeping in an empty house, only very
lordly and magnificent because he had a whole house to himself. The
food still left in his pockets served for supper, and you could drink
quite well at the wash-house tap by putting your head under and turning
it on very slowly.

And for a final enjoyment he laid out his treasures on the
newspaper--Tinkler and the seal in the middle and the pearly counters
arranged in patterns round them, circles and squares and oblongs. The
seeds lay very flat and fitted close together. They were excellent for
making patterns with. And presently he made, with triple lines of
silvery seeds, a six-pointed star, something like this--

[Illustration]

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