hese was the bird, because their
voices were only sweet. Sometimes he showed these wonders to a little
boy called Toby, who held his hand and called him Uncle John,
sometimes he showed them to his mummie and he himself was Toby; but
always when he came back he found himself lying in Uncle John's arms,
and, weary from his walk, would fall into a pleasant dreamless sleep.

It seemed to Toby at this time that a veil hung about him which, dim
and unreal in itself, served to make all things dim and unreal. He
did not know whether he was asleep or awake, so strange was life, so
vivid were his dreams. Mummie, Uncle John, the baby, Toby himself
came with a flicker of the veil and disappeared vaguely without
cause. It would happen that Toby would be speaking to Uncle John, and
suddenly he would find himself looking into the large eyes of the
baby, turned stupidly towards the ceiling, and again the baby would
be Toby himself, a hot, dry little body without legs or arms, that
swayed suspended as if by magic a foot above the bed.

Then there was the vision of two small feet that moved a long way
off, and Toby would watch them curiously as kittens do their tails,
without knowing the cause of their motion. It was all very wonderful
and very strange, and day by day the veil grew thicker; there was no
need to wake when the sleeptime was so pleasant; there were no dark
people to kick you in that dreamy place.

And yet Toby woke--woke to a life and in a place which he had never
known before.

He found himself on a heap of rags in a large cellar which depended
for its light on a grating let into the pavement of the street
above. On the stone floor of the area and swinging from the grating
were a few sickly, grimy plants in pots. There must have been, a
fine sunset up above, for a faint red glow came through the bars and
touched the leaves of the plants.

There was a lighted candle standing in a bottle on the table, and the
cellar seemed full of people. At the table itself two men and a woman
were drinking, though they were already drunk, and beyond in a corner
Toby could see the head and shoulders of a tall old man. Beside him
there crouched a woman with a faded, pretty face, and between Toby
and the rest of the room there stood a box in which lay a baby with
large, wakeful eyes.

Toby's body tingled with excitement, for this was a new thing; he had
never seen it before, he had never seen anything before.

The voice of the woman