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man’s voice too—what on earth could have brought him to this?

At half-past nine Tony was sent for to attend on Mr. Robertson, much to the astonishment of the brown kitchen world. They went out together, Tony doing his best to be a conscientious guide, but without much result, for Robertson was in no mood for sight-seeing. As soon as possible he suggested that they should stop for lunch. They had a very good one—it hurt Robertson’s soft heart that Tony did not expect to sit with him, and it hurt him still more to see how much the food meant to the boy—and afterwards he said he felt inclined for a smoke and a sleep after it.

“Could you go to sleep too? It’s too hot to be rushing about.”

Tony smiled, and his face looked four years younger.

“Could I? Standing—easy!” he said, and curling up, he shut his eyes and was asleep before Robertson had finished lighting his cigar.

He watched for a long time; Tony did not stir; his breathing was so light as to be almost imperceptible.

“He’s a good boy,” Robertson thought. “He’s a grafter. Quite worried he was, this morning, because he wasn’t showing me things. Beastly life for him here . . . it’s killing him. What a brute that old Austrian must have been to leave him adrift! . . . I never saw such a proud mouth on a child—he is a child, only ten. ‘Nearly eleven,’ he says—how anxious he is to grow up! An uncommunicative little beggar, though. I wonder where he came from originally? He spoke of ‘my people’ as if they were royalty, by Jove!”

Robertson chuckled, remembering the grimy little bootblack of the early morning, but softly, for fear of awaking the sleeping boy. He was no knight errant, no Don Quixote—not a remarkable person in any way, this kindly hearted