"Um-hm," assented the old gentleman, "and you--what's your name?"

"John," I replied.

"Oh," he said, with an odd little smile, "and what do they keep on calling
_you_?"

"Just John," I answered firmly, "nothing else."

"Who's your father?" came the next question.

"He's David Curzon, senior," I said proudly, "and he's in South America
building a railroad an' Mrs. Handsomebody used to be his governess when he
was a little boy, so he left us with her, but some day, pretty soon, I
think, he's coming back to make a really home for us with rabbits an'
puppies an' pigeons an' things."

Our new friend nodded sympathetically. Then, quite suddenly, he asked:

"Where's your mother?"

"She's in Heaven," I answered sadly, "she went there two months ago."

"Yes," broke in The Seraph eagerly, "but she's comin' back some day to make
a _weally_ home for us!"

"Shut up!" said Angel gruffly, poking him with his elbow.

"The Seraph's very little," I explained apologetically, "he doesn't
understand."

The old gentleman put his hand in the pocket of his dressing-gown.

"Bantling," he said with his droll smile, "do you like peppermint
bull's-eyes?"

"Yes," said The Seraph, "I yike them--one for each of us."

Whereupon this extraordinary man began throwing us peppermints as fast as
we could catch them. It was surprising how we began to feel at home with
him, as though we had known him for years.

He had travelled all over the world it seemed, and he brought many curious
things to the window to show us. One of these was a starling whose wicker
cage he placed on the sill where the sunlight fell.

He had got it, he said, from one of the crew of a trading vessel off the
coast of Java. The sailor had brought it all the way from Devon for
company, and, he added--"the brute had put out both its eyes so that it
would learn to talk more readily, so now, you see, the poor little fellow
is quite blind."

"Blind--blind--blind!" echoed the starling briskly, "blind--blind--blind!"

He took it from its cage on his finger. It hopped up his arm till it
reached his cheek, where it began to peck at his whiskers, crying all the
while in its shrill, lonely tones,--"Blind, blind, blind!"

We three were entranced; and an idea that was swiftly forming in my mind
struggled for expression.

If this wonderful old man had, as he said, sailed the seas from Land's End
to Ceylon, was it not possible that he had seen, even fought with, real
pira