perch.
Freddie looked up at the clock in the tower, with some thought that the
hands might be together; but it was a quarter past ten, and anyway Mr.
Punch's father was probably by this time far away in some other of his
store-rooms about the world.

Freddie entered the shop. Mr. Toby was behind the counter, opening a
package of tobacco.

"Aha! young feller!" he cried. "Back again, sure enough! Blamed if it
don't seem as if you'd been away from here for a year. And a mighty sick
chap you were, that's a fact. I reckon we all thought you were going to
die, maybe; by crackey, I never seen anyone so pale in my life. Are you
all right now?"

"Yes, sir," said Freddie. "And I'm glad to be back. Are you glad to be
here in the shop, the same as ever?"

"Me? You bet I am. You couldn't buy me to leave this shop, not if you
offered me all the money that Captain Kidd ever buried. No, sir. And
look here, young man; I reckon you ain't surprised to see that the
Chinaman's head is gone; eh?"

Freddie looked at the shelf behind Toby, and sure enough, the Chinaman's
head was gone. He knew, of course, that it was lying at the bottom of
the ocean.

"I kind of lost it one day," said Toby, winking his eye. "Mislaid it,
you know, or lost it, one or the other, I don't know which,--but,
anyway, I reckon it won't never be found. It's gone. I hope you don't
mind it now, do you?"

"No, sir," said Freddie. He was glad to know that Mr. Toby was not still
feeling disturbed because he had left it on board The Sieve.

"All right, then," said Toby. "You'd better go in and see Aunt Amanda."

Freddie opened the door at the rear of the shop and went into the back
room. Aunt Amanda was sitting by the table, sewing.

On the table were the wax flowers and the album and the double glasses
through which you looked at the twin pictures. The room was just as if
they had never left it.

"Eshyereerilart," said Aunt Amanda, taking a handful of pins from her
mouth. "Bless your dear little heart, I'm glad you're back again. Are
you well? Sit down on the hassock."

Freddie took his customary place on the hassock at her feet. He looked
up at her and wondered if she were sorry she had been a queen once and
was a queen no more.

"Yes'm," said he. "I'm all well now."

"And glad to be back here in the shop again?"

"Yes'm; I cert'n'y am."

[Illustration: "Ah, yes," said Aunt Amanda, "there's no place like the
Old Tobacco Shop, after all."]

"Ah, yes,"