and drew him forward close to his knees. The round mirror
on his forehead flashed into Ger's eyes and he winced.

"Headache, eh?" said the Myjor cheerfully. "You don't look as though
you ought to get headaches. Can you read?"

"No, sir, that's just what I can't do, and there's awful rows about it.
I can't seem to read, I don't want to much, but I do try . . . I do
really, but it's so muddly."

"How long have you been learning?"

"Years and years," said Ger mournfully. "They say Kitten 'll read
before me, and she's only four."

"Um," said the Myjor, "that will never do. We can't have Kitten
stealing a march on us that way. This must be seen into. By the way,
what's your name?"

"Gervais Folaire Ffolliot," Ger answered solemnly, as though he were
saying his catechism.

"Ffolliot . . . Ffolliot . . . where d'you live?"

"Redmarley . . . it's a long way from here."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"I'm stopping with grannie and grandfather."

"And who is grandfather?"

"General Grantly," Ger answered promptly, smiling broadly. He always
felt that his grandfather was a trump card anywhere, but in Woolwich
most of all, "and he's got such a lot of medals, teeny ones, you know,
like the big ones. I can read _them_," he added proudly. "I know them
all. Grannie taught me."

"But why have you come to me? And why on earth do you come in among
the wives and children of the Shop servants?"

"The door was open," Ger explained, "and I talked to the ear boy, and
he said you were most awfully gentle and didn't hurt and hated if you
had to--so I knew you were kind, and I'm awfully fond of kind people,
so I wanted to see you--you're not cross, are you?" he asked anxiously.

"Um," again remarked the Myjor, and stared at Ger thoughtfully.
"Well," he said at last, "since you are here, what is it you find so
hard about reading?"

"It's so muddly," Ger complained, "nasty little letters and all so much
alike."

"Exactly so," said the Myjor.

Then he drew down the blinds.

Ger's heart beat fast. Here was an adventure indeed, and when you were
once well in for an adventure all sorts of queer things happened.

Unprecedented things happened to Ger, but he was never very clear
afterwards as to what they were. So many things were "done to him"
that he became quite confused. Lights flashed into eyes, lights so
brilliant that they quite hurt. Curious spectacles with heavy frames
and glasses that took in and