first on one side and
then on the other, and blinks at me before he'll begin to eat, till I'm
half inclined to box his ears. And whenever East comes in, you should
see him hop off to the window, dot and go one, though Harry wouldn't
touch a feather of him now."

Arthur laughed. "Old Gravey has a good memory; he can't forget the
sieges of poor Martin's den in old times." He paused a moment, and then
went on. "You can't think how often I've been thinking of old Martin
since I've been ill; I suppose one's mind gets restless, and likes to
wander off to strange unknown places. I wonder what queer new pets the
old boy has got; how he must be revelling in the thousand new birds,
beasts, and fishes."

Tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a moment. "Fancy him
on a South-Sea island, with the Cherokees or Patagonians, or some such
wild niggers;" (Tom's ethnology and geography were faulty, but
sufficient for his needs;) "they'll make the old Madman cock
medicine-man and tattoo him all over. Perhaps he's cutting about now all
blue, and has a squaw and a wigwam. He'll improve their boomerangs, and
be able to throw them too, without having old Thomas sent after him by
the Doctor to take them away."

Arthur laughed at the remembrance of the boomerang story, but then
looked grave again, and said "He'll convert all the island, I know."

"Yes, if he don't blow it up first."

"Do you remember, Tom, how you and East used to laugh at him and chaff
him, because he said he was sure the rooks all had calling-over or
prayers, or something of the sort, when the locking-up bell rang? Well,
I declare," said Arthur, looking up seriously into Tom's laughing eyes,
"I do think he was right. Since I've been lying here, I've watched them
every night; and do you know, they really do come, and perch all of them
just about locking-up time; and then first there's a regular chorus of
caws, and then they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two or
three in different trees, caw solos, and then off they all go again,
fluttering about and cawing anyhow till they roost."

"I wonder if the old blackies do talk," said Tom, looking up at them.
"How they must abuse me and East, and pray for the Doctor for stopping
the slinging."

"There! look, look!" cried Arthur; "don't you see the old fellow without
a tail coming up? Martin used to call him the 'clerk.' He can't steer
himself. You never saw such fun as he is in a high wind, when he can't