playing. I'm fond o'
fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker's shop--Conrad Gerhard's it
was--and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was
going to have some too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was
hungry. "Oh yes!" I says. I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens a
door on to a staircase and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty
little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the
window, in a smell of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I
_was_ knocked down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in
the face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the
pills rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid.

'"Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!" the fat man screeches.

'I started picking 'em up--hundreds of 'em--meaning to run out under the
Indian's arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The fat man
went back to his fiddling.

'"Toby!" says the Indian after quite a while. "I brought the boy to be
fed, not hit."

'"What?" says Toby, "I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder." He put down
his fiddle and took a good look at me. "Himmel!" he says. "I have hit
the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are you not the new boy? Why
are you not Gert Schwankfelder?"

'"I don't know," I said. "The gentleman in the pink blanket brought me."

'Says the Indian, "He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed the
hungry. So I bring him."

'"You should have said that first," said Toby. He pushed plates at me
and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine.
I told him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of
my mother being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and
besides I saw that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby
and the Indian whispered and I went on picking up the pills.

'"You like pills--eh?" says Toby.

'"No," I says. "I've seen our ship's doctor roll too many of 'em."

'"Ho!" he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. "What's those?"

'"Calomel," I says. "And t'other's senna."

'"Right," he says. "One week have I tried to teach Gert Schwankfelder
the difference between them, yet he cannot tell. You like to fiddle?" he
says. He'd just seen my kit on the floor.

'"Oh yes!" says I.

'"Oho!" he says. "What note is this?" drawing his bow acrost.

'He meant it for A, so I told him it was.

'"My brother," he says to the Indian. "I think this is