.>*-'*<i?3P 
 
 fflE-LlTTltWHITE-BIRP 
 
 "S:0fea\DVE,NTVRE,S -JN • 
 
 'a'^KILN S I N G ^ON • 
 ■GARDEN 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ;^^K?."-. -*-' 
 
 JMBARRIE 
 
L7 
 
 €mu\\ IKmvmitg ^ttat| 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF * . 
 
 -* Slenirs m. Sage 
 
 - 1«9I 
 
 j„*ft.^ 
 
 /4/./::fo:^:8^..8: , ^/^/^foS 
 
 5474 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4074.L7 1902 
 
 The little white bird; or, Adventures In 
 
 3 1924 012 962 720 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012962720 
 
THE 
 
 LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 OR 
 
 ADVENTURES IN 
 KENSINGTON GARDENS 
 
 ^ ,^y 
 
 J^ M; BARRIE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 MDCCCCII 
 
Copyright, 1902, by Charles Scribner's Sons lOz 
 
 %. 
 
 Published, November, 1902 
 
 /^AU^^< 
 
 THE CAXTON PRESS 
 NEW YORK. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 /. David and I Set Forth upon a 
 
 Journey 1 
 
 //. The Little Nursery Governess 13 
 
 ///. Her Marriage, Her Clothes, Her 
 
 Appetite, and an Inventory of 
 
 Her Furniture 27 
 
 IV. A Night-Piece 42 
 
 V. The Fight for Timothy 53 
 
 VI. A Shock 67 
 
 VII. The Last of Timothy 74 
 
 VIII. The Inconsiderate Waiter 80 
 
 IJC. A Confirmed Spinster 98 
 
 X. Sporting Reflections 110 
 
 XI. The Runaway Perambulator 113 
 
 XII. The Pleasantest Club in London 129 
 
 XIII. The Grand Tour of the Gardens 142 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XIV. Peter Pan 157 
 
 XV. The ThrusKs Nest 173 
 
 XVI. Loch-Out Time 189 
 
 XVII. The Little House 209 
 
 XVIIL Peter's Goat 
 
 XIX. An Interloper 
 
 XX. David and Porthos Compared 260 
 
 XXI. William Paterson 271 
 
 XXn. Joey 285 
 
 XXIII. PUkingtari's 300 
 
 XXIV. Barbara 316 
 XXV. The Cricket Match 
 
 XXVI. The Dedication 
 
 IV 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 DAVID AND I SET FORTH UPON A JOUENEY 
 
 Sometimes the Uttle boy who calls me father 
 brings me an invitation from his mother: "I shall 
 be so pleased if you will come and see me," and I 
 always reply in some such words as these: "Dear 
 madam, I decline." And if David asks why I de- 
 cline, I explain that it is because I have no desire 
 to meet the woman. 
 
 "Come this time, father," he urged lately, "for 
 it is her birthday, and she is twenty-six," which 
 is so great an age to David, that I think he fears 
 she cannot last much longer. 
 
 "Twenty-six, is she, David.?" I replied. "Tell 
 her I said she looks more." 
 
 I had my delicious dream that night. I dreamt 
 1 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 that I too was twenty-six, which was a long time 
 ago, and that I took train to a place called my 
 home, whose whereabouts I see not in my waking 
 hours, and when I alighted at the station a dear 
 lost love was waiting for me, and we went away 
 together. She met me in no ecstasy of emotion, 
 nor was I surprised to find her there; it was as if 
 we had been married for years and parted for a 
 day. I like to think that I gave her some of the 
 things to carry. 
 
 Were I to tell my delightful dream to David's 
 mother, to whom I have never in my life addressed 
 one word, she would droop her head and raise it 
 bravely, to imply that I make her very sad but 
 very proud, and she would be wishful to lend me 
 her absurd little pocket handkerchief. And then, 
 had I the heart, I might make a disclosure that 
 would startle her, for it is not the face of David's 
 mother that I see in my dreams. 
 
 Has it ever been your lot, reader, to be perse- 
 cuted by a pretty woman who thinks, without a 
 tittle of reason, that you are bowed down under 
 a hopeless partiality for her.? It is thus that I 
 
 2 
 
DAVID AND I JOURNEY 
 
 have been pursued for several years now by the 
 unwelcome sympathy of the tender-hearted and 
 
 virtuous Mary A . When we pass in the street 
 
 the poor deluded soul subdues her buoyancy, as if 
 it were shame to walk happy before one she has 
 lamed, and at such times the rustle of her gown 
 is whispered words of comfort to me, and her arms 
 are kindly wings that wish I was a little boy like 
 David. I also detect in her a fearful elation, which 
 I am unaware of until she has passed, when it 
 comes back to me like a faint note of challenge. 
 Eyes that say you never must, nose that says why 
 don't you? and a mouth that says I rather wish 
 
 you could: such is the portrait of Mary A as 
 
 she and I pass by. 
 
 Once she dared to address me, so that she could 
 boast to David that I had spoken to her. I was 
 in the Kensington Gardens, and she asked would 
 I tell her the time please, just as children ask, and 
 forget as they run back with it to their nurse. But 
 I was prepared even for this, and raising my hat 
 I pointed with my staff to a clock in the distance. 
 She should have been overwhelmed, but as I walked 
 
 3 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 on listening intently, I thought with displeasure 
 that I heard her laughing. 
 
 Her laugh is very like David's, whom I could 
 punch all day in order to hear him laugh. I dare 
 say she put this laugh into him. She has been put- 
 ting qualities into David, altering him, turning 
 him forever on a lathe since the day she first knew 
 him, and indeed long before, and all so deftly that 
 he is still called a child of nature. When you re- 
 lease David's hand he is immediately lost like an 
 arrow from the bow. No sooner do you cast eyes 
 on him than you are thinking of birds. It is diffi- 
 cult to believe that he walks to the Kensington 
 Gardens ; he always seems to have alighted there : 
 and were I to scatter crumbs I opine he would 
 come and peck. This is not what he set out to be; 
 it is all the doing of that timid-looking lady who 
 affects to be greatly surprised by it. He strikes a 
 hundred gallant poses in a day ; when he tumbles, 
 which is often, he comes to the ground like a Greek 
 
 god; so Mary A has willed it. But how she 
 
 suffers that he may achieve ! I have seen him climb- 
 ing a tree while she stood beneath in unutterable 
 
 4, 
 
DAVID AND I JOURNEY 
 
 anguish; she had to let him climb, for boys must 
 be brave, but I am sure that, as she watched him, 
 she fell from every branch. 
 
 David admires her prodigiously; he thinks her 
 so good that she vidll be able to get him into heaven, 
 however naughty he is. Otherwise he would tres- 
 pass less light-heartedly. Perhaps she has discov- 
 ered this; for, as I learn from him, she warned 
 him lately that she is not such a dear as he thinks 
 her. 
 
 " I am very sure of it," I replied. 
 
 "Is she such a dear as you think her?" he asked 
 me. 
 
 "Heaven help her," I said, "if she be not dearer 
 than that." 
 
 Heaven help all mothers if they be not really 
 dears, for their boy will certainly know it in that 
 strange short hour of the day when every mother 
 stands revealed before her little son. That dread 
 hoiu: ticks between six and seven; when children 
 go to bed later the revelation has ceased to come. 
 He is lapt in for the night now and lies quietly 
 there, madam, with great, mysterious eyes fixed 
 
 5 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 upon his mother. He is summing up your day. 
 Nothing in the revelations that kept you together 
 and yet apart in play time can save you now ; you 
 two are of no age, no experience of life separates 
 you; it is the boy's hour, and you have come up 
 for judgment. "Have I done well to-day, my son.-"' 
 You have got to say It, and nothing may you hide 
 from him; he knows all. How like your voice has 
 grown to his, but more tremulous, and both so 
 solemn, so unlike the voice of either of you by 
 day. 
 
 "You were a little unjust to me to-day about 
 the apple; were you not, mother?" 
 
 Stand there, woman, by the foot of the bed and 
 cross your hands and answer him. 
 
 "Yes, my son, I was. I thought " 
 
 But what you thought will not affect the verdict. 
 
 "Was it fair, mother, to say that I could stay 
 out till six, and then pretend it was six before it 
 was quite six?" 
 
 "No, it was very unfair. I thought ^" 
 
 "Would it have been a lie if I had said it was 
 quite six?" 
 
 6 
 
DAVID AND I JOURNEY 
 
 "Oh, my son, my son! I shall never tell you a 
 He again." 
 
 "No, mother, please don't." 
 
 "My boy, have I done well to-day on the 
 whole?" 
 
 Suppose he were unable to say yes. 
 
 These are the merest peccadilloes, you may say. 
 Is it then a little thing to be false to the agreement 
 you signed when you got the boy? There are 
 mothers who avoid their children in that hour, but 
 this will not save them. Why is it that so many 
 women are afraid to be left alone with their 
 thoughts between six and seven? I am not asking 
 this of you, Mary. I believe that when you close 
 David's door softly there is a gladness in your eyes, 
 and the awe of one who knows?v;hat the God to 
 whom little boys say their prayers has a face very 
 like their mother's.ls, 
 
 I may mention here that David is a stout be- 
 liever in prayer, and has had his first fight with 
 another young Christian who challenged him to the 
 jump and prayed for victory, which David thought 
 was taking an unfair advantage. 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "So Mary is twenty-six! I say, David, she is 
 getting on. Tell her that I am coming in to kiss 
 her when she is fifty-two." 
 
 He told her, and I understand that she pre- 
 tended to be indignant. When I pass her in tlte 
 street now she pouts. Clearly preparing for our 
 meeting. She has also said, I learn, that I shall not 
 think so much of her when she is fifty-two, mean- 
 ing that she will not be so pretty then. So little 
 does the sex know of beauty. Surely a spirited old 
 lady may be the prettiest sight in the world. For 
 my part, I confess that it is they, and not the 
 young ones, who have ever been my undoing. Just 
 as I was about to fall in love I suddenly found that 
 I preferred the mother. Indeed, I cannot see a 
 likely young creature without impatiently consid- 
 ering her chances for, say, fifty-two. Oh, you 
 mysterious girls, when you are fifty-two we shall 
 find you out; you must come into the open then. 
 If the mouth has fallen sourly yours the blame: 
 all the meannesses your youth concealed have been 
 gathering in your face. But the pretty thoughts 
 and sweet ways and dear, forgotten kindnesses 
 8 
 
DAVID AND I journey; 
 
 Knger there also, to bloom in your twilight like 
 evening primroses. 
 
 Is it not strange that, though I talk thus plainly 
 to David about his mother, he still seems to think 
 me fond of her? How now, I reflect, what sort 
 of bimipkin is this, and perhaps I say to him 
 cruelly : " Boy, you are uncommonly like your 
 mother." 
 
 To which David : "Is that why you are so kind 
 to me?" 
 
 I suppose I am kind to him, but if so it is not 
 for love of his mother, but because he sometimes 
 calls me father. On my honour as a soldier, there 
 is nothing more in it than that. I must not let him 
 know this, for it would make him conscious, and 
 so break the spell that binds him and me together. 
 
 Oftenest I am but Captain W to him, and for 
 
 the best of reasons. He addresses me as father when 
 he is in a hurry only, and never have I dared ask 
 him to use the name. He says, "Come, father," with 
 an accursed beautiful carelessness. So let it be, 
 David, for a little while longer. 
 
 I like to hear him say it before others, as in 
 9 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 shops. When in shops he as^ks the salesman how 
 much money he makes in a day, and which drawer 
 he keeps it in, and why his hair is red, and does 
 he like Achilles, of whom David has lately heard, 
 and is so enamoured that he wants to die to meet 
 him. At such times the shopkeepers accept me a^ 
 his father, and I cannot explain the peculiar pleas- 
 ure this gives me. I am always in two minds then, 
 to linger that we may have more of it, and to 
 snatch him away before he volunteers the informa- 
 tion, "He is not really my father." 
 
 When David meets Achilles I know what will 
 happen. The little boy will take the hero by the 
 hand, call him father, and drag him away to some 
 Round Pond. 
 
 One day, when David was about five, I sent him 
 the following letter: "Dear David: If you really 
 want to know how it began, will you come and 
 have a chop with me to-day at the club.'"' 
 
 Mary, who, I have found out, opens all his let- 
 ters, gave her consent, and, I doubt not, instructed 
 him to pay heed to what happened so that he might 
 repeat it to her, for despite her curiosity she knows 
 10 
 
DAVID AND I JOURNEY 
 
 not how it began hersdf . I chuckled, guessing that 
 she expected something romantic. 
 
 He came to me arrayed as for a mighty journey, 
 and looking unusually solemn, as little boys always 
 do look when they are wearing a great coai. There 
 was a shawl round his neck. "You can take some 
 of them off," I said, "when we come to summer." 
 
 "Shall we come to summer?" he asked, properly 
 awed. 
 
 "To many summers," I replied, "for we are 
 going away back, David, to see your mother as 
 she was in the days before there was you." 
 
 We hailed a hansom. "Drive back six years," I 
 said to the cabby, "and stop at the Junior Old 
 Fogies' Club." 
 
 He was a stupid fellow, and I had to guide him 
 with my umbrella. 
 
 The streets were not quite as they had been in 
 the morning. For instance, the bookshop at the 
 comer was now selling fish. I dropped David a hint 
 of what was going on. 
 
 "It doesn't make me littler, does it?" he asked 
 anxiously; and then, with a terrible misgiving: 
 II 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "It won't make me too little, will it, father?" by 
 which he meant that he hoped it would not do for 
 him altogether. He slipped his hand nervously into 
 mine, and I put it in my pocket. 
 
 You can't think how little David looked as we 
 entered the portals of the club. 
 
 IS 
 
II 
 
 THE LITTLE NUKSEBY GOVERNESS 
 
 As I enter the club smoking-room you are to con- 
 ceive David vanishing into nothingness, and that 
 it is any day six years ago at two in the afternoon. 
 I ring for coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy, and 
 take my chtiir by the window, just as the absurd 
 little nursery governess comes tripping into the 
 street. I always feel that I have rung for her. 
 
 While I am lifting the coffee-pot cautiously lest 
 the lid fall into the cup, she is crossing to the post- 
 office; as I select the one suitable limip of sugar 
 she is taking six last looks at the letter; with the 
 aid of William I light my cigarette, and now she 
 is re-reading the delicious address. I lie back in 
 my chair, and by this time she has dropped the 
 letter down the slit. I toy with my liqueur, and 
 she is listening to hear whether the postal authori- 
 ties have come for her letter. I scowl at a fellow- 
 member who has had the impudence to enter the 
 IS 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 smoking-room, and her two little charges are pull- 
 ing her away from the post-office. When I look out 
 at the window again she is gone, but I shall ring 
 for her to-morrow at two sharp. 
 
 She must have passed the window many times 
 before I noticed her. I know not where she lives, 
 though I suppose it to be hard by. She is taking 
 the httle boy and girl, who buUy her, to the St. 
 James's Park, as their hoops teU me, and she ought 
 to look crushed and faded. No doubt her mistress 
 overworks her. It must enrage the other servants 
 to see her deporting herself as if she were quite 
 the lady. 
 
 I noticed that she had sometimes other letters to 
 post, but that the posting of the one only was a 
 process. They shot down the slit, plebeians all, but 
 it followed pompously like royalty. I have even 
 seen her blow a kiss after it. 
 
 Then there was her ring, of which she was as 
 conscious as If it rather than she was what came 
 gaily down the street. She felt it through her 
 glove to make sure that it was still there. She took 
 off the glove and raised the ring to her lips, though 
 U 
 
THE NURSERY GOVERNESS 
 
 I doubt not it was the cheapest trinket. She viewed 
 it from afar by stretching out her hand; she 
 stooped to see how it looked near the ground ; she 
 considered its effect on the right of her and on 
 the left of her and through one eye at a time. 
 Even when you saw that she had made up her mind 
 to think hard of something else, the little silly 
 would take another look. 
 
 I give anyone three chances to guess why Mary 
 was so happy. 
 
 No and no and no. The reason was simply this, 
 that a lout of a young man loved her. And so, in- 
 stead of crying because she was the merest nobody, 
 she must, forsooth, sail javmtily down PaU Mall, 
 very trim as to her tackle and ticketed with the 
 insufferable air of an engaged woman. At first her 
 complacency disturbed me, but gradually it became 
 part of my life at two o'clock with the coffee, the 
 cigarette, and the liqueur. Now comes the tragedy. 
 
 Thursday is her great day. She has from two 
 
 to three every Thursday for her very own; just 
 
 think of it: this girl, who is probably paid several 
 
 pounds a year, gets a whole hour to herself once 
 
 15 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 a week. And what does she with it? Attend classes 
 for making her a more accomplished person? Not 
 she. This is what she does : sets sail for Pall Mall, 
 wearing all her pretty things, including the blue 
 feathers, and with such a sparkle of expectation 
 on her face that I stir my coffee quite fiercely. On 
 ordinary days she at least tries to look demure, but 
 on a Thursday she has had the assurance to use 
 the glass door of the club as a mirror in which 
 to see how she likes her engaging trifle of a figure 
 to-day. 
 
 In the meantime a long-legged oaf is waiting 
 for her outside the post-office, where they meet 
 every Thursday, a fellow who always wears the 
 same suit of clothes, but has a face that must 
 ever make him free of the company of gentlemen. 
 He is one of your lean, clean Englishmen, who 
 strip so well, and I fear me he is handsome; I say 
 fear, for your handsome men have always annoyed 
 me, and had I lived in the duelling days I swear 
 I would have called every one of them out. He 
 seems to be quite unaware that he is a pretty fel- 
 low, but Lord, how obviously Mary knows it. I 
 16 
 
THE NURSERY GOVERNESS 
 
 conclude that he belongs to the artistic classes, he 
 is so easily elated and depressed; and becaiMe he 
 carries his left thumb curiously, as if it were feel- 
 ing for the hole of a palette, I have entered his 
 name among the painters. I find pleasure in de- 
 ciding that they are shocking bad pictures, for 
 obviously no one buys them. I feel sure Mary says 
 they are splendid, she is that sort of woman. Hence 
 the rapture with which he greets her. Her first 
 effect upon him is to make him shout with laugh- 
 ter. He laughs suddenly haw from an eager exult- 
 ing face, then haw again, and then, when you are 
 thanking heaven that it is at last over, comes a 
 final haw, louder than the others. I take them to 
 be roars of joy because Mary is his, and they have 
 a ring of youth about them that is hard to bear. 
 I could forgive him everything save his youth, but 
 it is so aggressive that I have sometimes to order 
 William testily to close the window. 
 
 How much more deceitful than her lover is the 
 
 little nursery governess. The moment she comes 
 
 into sight she looks at the post-office and sees him. 
 
 Then she looks straight before her, and now she 
 
 17 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 is obserred, and he rushes across to her in a glory, 
 and she starts — positively starts — as if he had 
 taken her by surprise. Observe her hand rising sud- 
 denly to her wicked little heart. This is the mo- 
 ment when I stir my coffee violently. He gazes 
 down at her in such rapture that he is in every- 
 body's way, and as she takes his arm she gives it 
 a little squeeze, and then away they strut, Mary 
 doing nine-tenths of the talking. I fall to wonder- 
 ing what they will look like when they grow up. 
 
 What a ludicrous difference do these two no- 
 bodies make to each other. You can see that they 
 are to be married when he has twopence. 
 
 Thus I have not an atom of sympathy with this 
 girl, to whom London is famous only as the resi- 
 dence of a young man who mistakes her for some- 
 one else, but her happiness had become part of my 
 repast at two p.m., and when one day she walked 
 down Pall Mali without gradually posting a letter 
 I was most indignant. It was as if William had 
 disobeyed orders. Her two charges were as sur- 
 prised as I, and uointed questioningly to the slit, 
 at which she shook her head. She put her finger 
 18 
 
THE NURSERY GOVERNESS 
 to her eyes, exactly like a s«wi baby, and so passed 
 from the street. 
 
 Next day the same thing happened, and I was 
 so furious that I bit through my cigarette. Thurs- 
 day came, when I prayed that there might be an 
 end of this annoyance, but no, neither of them 
 appeared on that acquainted ground. Had they 
 changed their post-ofBce .'' No, for her eyes were 
 red every day, and heavy was her foolish little 
 heart. Love had put out his lights, and the little 
 nursery governess walked in darkness. 
 
 I felt I could complain to the committee. 
 
 Oh, you selfish young zany of a man, after all 
 you have said to her, won't you make it up and 
 let me return to my coffee? Not he. 
 
 Little nursery governess, I appeal to you. An- 
 noying girl, be joyous as of old during the five 
 minutes of the day when you are anything to me, 
 and for the rest of the time, so far as I am con- 
 cerned, you may be as wretched as you list. Show 
 some courage. I assure you he must be a very bad 
 painter; only the other day I saw him looking 
 longingly into the window of a cheap Italian 
 
 19 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 restaurant, and in the end he had to crush down 
 his aspirations with two penny scones. 
 
 You can do better than that. Come, Mary. 
 
 All in vain. She wants to be loved; can't do 
 without love from morning till night; never knew 
 how little a woman needs till she lost that little. 
 They are all Hke this. 
 
 Zounds, madam, if you are resolved to be a 
 drooping little figure till you die, you might at 
 least do it in another street. 
 
 Not only does she maliciously depress me by 
 walking past on ordinary days, but I have discov- 
 ered that every Thursday from two to three she 
 stands afar off, gazing hopelessly at the romantic 
 post-ofEce where she and he shall meet no more. 
 In these windy days she is like a homeless leaf 
 blown about by passers-by. 
 
 There is nothing I can do except thunder at 
 William. 
 
 At last she accomplished her unworthy ambition. 
 
 It was a wet Thursday, and from the window where 
 
 I was writing letters I saw the forlorn soul taking 
 
 up her position at the top of the street: in a blast 
 
 20 
 
THE NURSERY GOVERNESS 
 
 of fury I rose with the one letter I had completed, 
 meaning to write the others in my chambers. She 
 had driven me from the club. 
 
 I had turned out of Pall Mall into a side street, 
 when whom should I strike against but her false 
 swain ! It was my fault, but I hit out at him sav- 
 agely, as I always do when I run into anyone in 
 the street. Then I looked at him. He was hollow- 
 eyed; he was muddy; there was not a haw left in 
 him. I never saw a more abject young man; he 
 had not even the spirit to resent the testy stab I 
 had given him with my umbrella. But this is the 
 important thing: he was glaring wistfully at the 
 post-office and thus in a twink I saw that he still 
 adored my little governess. Whatever had been 
 their quarrel he was as anxious to make it up as 
 she, and perhaps he had been here every Thursday 
 while she was round the corner in Pall MaU, each 
 watching the post-office for an apparition. But 
 from where they hovered neither could see the 
 other. 
 
 I think what I did was quite clever. I dropped 
 my letter unseen at his feet, and sauntered back 
 21 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 to the club. Of course, a gentleman who finds a 
 letter on the pavement feels bound to post it, and 
 I presumed that he would naturally go to the near- 
 est office. 
 
 With my hat on I strolled to the smoking-room 
 window, and was just in time to see him posting 
 my letter across the way. Then I looked for the 
 little nursery governess. I saw her as woe-begone 
 as ever; then, suddenly — oh, you poor little soul, 
 and has it really been as bad as that ! 
 
 She was crying outright, and he was holding 
 both her hands. It was a disgraceful exhibition. 
 The young painter would evidently explode if he 
 could not make use of his arms. She must die if she 
 could not lay her head upon his breast. I must 
 admit that he rose to the occasion; he hailed a 
 hansom. 
 
 "WiUiam," said I gaily, "coffee, cigarette, and 
 cherry brandy." 
 
 As I sat there watching that old play David 
 plucked my sleeve to ask what I was looking at so 
 deedily; and when I told him he ran eagerly to 
 
THE NURSERY GOVERNESS 
 
 the window, but he reached it just too late to see 
 the lady who was to become his mother. What I 
 told him of her doings, however, interested him 
 greatly ; and he intimated rather shyly that he was 
 acquainted with the man who said, " Haw-haw- 
 haw." On the other hand, he irritated me by be- 
 traying an idiotic interest in the two children, 
 whom he seemed to regard as the hero and heroine 
 of the story. What were their names.? How old 
 were they.f" Had they both hoops .-' Were they iron 
 hoops, or just wooden hoops.? Who gave them their 
 hoops.? 
 
 "You don't seem to understand, my boy," I said 
 tartly, "that had I not dropped that letter, there 
 would never have been a little boy called David 
 
 A ." But instead of being appalled by this 
 
 he asked, sparkling, whether I meant that he would 
 still be a bird flying about in the Kensington 
 Gardens. 
 
 David knows that aU children in our part of 
 London were once birds in the Kensington Gar- 
 dens ; and that the reason there are bars on nursery 
 windows and a tall fender by the fire is because 
 23 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 very little people sometimes forget that they have 
 no longer wings, and try to fly away through the 
 window or up the chimney. 
 
 Children in the bird stage are difficult to catch. 
 David knows that many people have none, and his 
 delight on a summer afternoon is to go with me 
 to some spot in the Gardens where these unfortu- 
 nates may be seen trying to catch one with small 
 pieces of cake. 
 
 That the birds know what would happen if they 
 were caught, and are even a little undecided about 
 which is the better life, is obvious to every student 
 of them. Thus, if you leave your empty peram- 
 bulator under the trees and watch from a distance, 
 you will see the birds boarding it and hopping 
 about from pillow to blanket in a twitter of excite- 
 ment; they are trying to find out how babyhood 
 would suit them. 
 
 Quite the prettiest sight in the Gardens is when 
 the babies stray from the tree where the nurse is 
 sitting and are seen feeding the birds, not a grown- 
 up near them. It is first a bit to me and then a 
 bit to you, and all the time such a jabbering and 
 24 
 
THE NURSKRY GOVERNESS 
 
 laughing from both sides of the railing. They are 
 oomparing notes and inquiring for old friends, and 
 so on; but what they say I cannot determine, for 
 when I approach they all fly away. 
 
 The first time I ever saw David was on the sward 
 behind the Baby's Walk. He was a missel-thrush, 
 attracted thither that hot day by a hose which lay 
 on the ground sending forth a gay trickle of wa- 
 ter, and David was on his back in the water, kick- 
 ing up his legs. He used to enjoy being told of 
 this, having forgotten all about it, and gradually 
 it all came back to him, with a number of other 
 incidents that had escaped my memory, though I 
 remember that he was eventually caught by the leg 
 with a long string and a cunning arrangement of 
 twigs near the Round Pond. He never tires of this 
 story, but I notice that fit is now he who tells it 
 to me rather than I to him, and when we come to 
 the string he rubs his little leg as if it stiU smarted. 
 
 So when David saw his chance of being a missel- 
 thrush again he called out to me quickly: "Don't 
 drop the letter!" and there were tree-tops in his 
 eyes. 
 
 25 
 
 jr 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "Think of your mother," I said severely. 
 
 He said he would often fly in to see her. The 
 first thing he would do would be to hug her. No, 
 he would alight on the water-jug first, and have a 
 drink. 
 
 "Tell her, father," he said with horrid heart- 
 lessness, "always to have plenty of water in it, 'cos 
 if I had to lean down too far I might fall in and 
 be drownded." 
 
 "Am I not to drop the letter, David? Think of 
 your poor mother without her boy!" 
 
 It aflFected him, but he bore up. When she was 
 asleep, he said, he would hop on to the frilly things 
 of her night-gown and peck at her mouth. 
 
 "And then she would wake up, David, and find 
 that she had only a bird instead of a boy." 
 
 This shock to Mary was more than he could en- 
 dure. "You can drop it," he said with a sigh. So 
 I dropped the letter, as I think I have already 
 mentioned; and that is how it all began. 
 
 S6 
 
ni 
 
 HEX MAEEIAGE, HEE CLOTHES, HEB APPETITE, AND 
 AN INVENTORY OF HEE FUENITUEE 
 
 A WEEK or two after I dropped the letter I was 
 in a hansom on my way to certain barracks when 
 loud above the city's roar I heard that accursed 
 haw-haw-TiflO', and there they were, the two of 
 them, just coming out of a shop where you may 
 obtain pianos on the hire system. I had the merest 
 glimpse of them, but there was an extraordinary 
 rapture on her face, and his head was thrown 
 proudly back, and all because they had been order- 
 ing a piano on the hire system. 
 
 So they were to be married directly. It was all 
 rather contemptible, but I passed on tolerantly, for 
 it is only when she is unhappy that this tvoman 
 disturbs me, owing to a clever way she has at such 
 times of looking more fragile than she really is. 
 
 When next I saw them, they were gazing greed- 
 ily into the window of the sixpenny-halfpenny 
 27 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 shop, which is one of the most deliciously dramatic 
 spots in London. Mary was taking notes feverishly 
 on a slip of paper while he did the adding up, and 
 in the end they went away gloomily without buy- 
 ing anything. I was in high feather. "Match 
 abandoned, ma'am," I said to myself; "outlook 
 hopeless ; another visit to the Governesses' Agency 
 inevitable; can't marry for want of a kitchen 
 shovel." 
 
 But I was imperfectly acquainted with the lady. 
 
 A few days afterward I found myself walking 
 behind her. There is something artful about her 
 skirts by which I always know her, though I can't 
 say what it is. She was carrying an enormous par- 
 cel that might have been a bird-cage wrapped in 
 brown paper, and she took it into a bric-a-brac 
 shop and came out without it. She then ran rather 
 than walked in the direction of the sixpenny-half- 
 penny shop. Now mystery of any kind is detest- 
 able to me, and I went into the bric-a-brac shop, 
 ostensibly to look at the cracked china; and there, 
 still on the counter, with the wrapping torn off it, 
 was the article Mary had sold in order to furnish 
 28 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 on the proceeds. What do you think it was? It was 
 a wonderful doll's house, with dolls at tea down- 
 stairs and dolls going to bed upstairs, and a doll 
 showing a doll out at the front door. Loving lips 
 had long ago licked most of the paint off, but 
 otherwise the thing was in admirable preservation; 
 obviously the joy of Mary's childhood, it had now 
 been sold by her that she might get married. 
 
 "Lately purchased by us," said the shopwoman, 
 seeing me look at the toy, "from a lady who has 
 no further use for it." 
 
 I think I have seldom been more indignant with 
 Mary. I bought the doU's house, and as they knew 
 the lady's address (it was at this shop that I first 
 learned her name) I instructed them to send it back 
 to her with the following letter, which I wrote in 
 the shop: "Dear madam, don't be ridiculous. You 
 will certainly have further use for this. I am, etc., 
 the Man Who Dropped the Letter." 
 
 It pained me afterward, but too late to rescind 
 
 the order, to reflect that I had sent her a wedding 
 
 present; and when next I saw her she had been 
 
 married for some months. The time was nine o'clock 
 
 29 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 of a November evening, and we were in a street of 
 shops that has not in twenty years decided whether 
 to be genteel or frankly vulgar ; here it minces in 
 the fashion, but take a step onward and its tongue 
 is in the cup of the ice-cream man. I usually rush 
 this street, which is not far from my rooms, with 
 the glass down, but to-night I was walking. Mary 
 was in front of me, leaning in a somewhat foolish 
 way on the haw-er, and they were chatting excit- 
 edly. She seemed to be remonstrating with him for 
 going forward, yet more than half admiring him 
 for not turning back, and I wondered why. 
 
 And after all what was it that Mary and her 
 painter had come out to do? To buy two pork 
 chops. On my honour. She had been trying to per- 
 suade him, I decided, that they were living too 
 lavishly. That was why she sought to draw him 
 back. But in her heart she loves audacity, and that 
 is why she admired him for pressing forward. 
 
 No sooner had they bought the, chops than they 
 
 scurried away like two gleeful children to cook 
 
 them. I followed, hoping to trace them to their 
 
 home, but they soon out-distanced me, and that 
 
 SO 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 night I composed the following aphorism: It is 
 idle to attempt to overtake a pretty young woman 
 carrying pork chops. I was now determined to be 
 done with her. First, however, to find out their 
 abode, which was probably within easy distance of 
 the shop. I even conceived them lured into taking 
 their house by the advertisement, "Conveniently 
 situated for the Pork Emporium." 
 
 Well, one day — ^now this really is romantic and 
 I am rather proud of it. My chambers are on the 
 second floor, and are backed by an anxiously polite 
 street between which and mine are little yards 
 called, I think, gardens. They are so small that if 
 you have the tree your neighbour has the shade 
 from it. I was looking out at my back window on 
 the day we have come to when whom did I see but 
 the whilom nursery governess sitting on a chair in 
 one of these gardens. I put up my eye-glass to 
 make sure, and undoubtedly it was she. But she 
 sat there doing nothing, which was by no means 
 my conception of the jade, so I brought a field- 
 glass to bear and discovered that the object was 
 merely a lady's jacket. It hung on the back of a 
 31 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 kitchen chair, seemed to be a furry thing, and, I 
 must suppose, was suspended there for an airing. 
 
 I was chagrined, and then I insisted stoutly with 
 myself that, as it was not Mary, it must be Mary's 
 jacket. I had never seen her wear such a jacket, 
 mind you, yet I was confident, I can't tell why. 
 Do clothes absorb a little of the character of their 
 wearer, so that I recognised this jacket by a certain 
 coquetry? If she has a way with her skirts that 
 always advertises me of her presence, quite possibly 
 she is as cunning with jackets. Or perhaps she is 
 her own seamstress, and puts in little tucks of 
 herself. 
 
 Figure it what you please ; but I beg to inform 
 you that I put on my hat and five minutes after- 
 ward saw Mary and her husband emerge from the 
 house to which I had calculated that garden be- 
 longed. Now am I clever, or am I not? 
 
 When they had left the street I examined the 
 house leisurely, and a droll house it is. Seen from 
 the front it appears to consist of a door and a win- 
 dow, though above them the trained eye may detect 
 another window, the air-hole of some apartment 
 S2 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 which it would be just like Mary's grandiloquence 
 to call her bedroom. The houses on each side of 
 this bandbox are tall, and I discovered later that 
 it had once been an open passage to the back gar- 
 dens. The story and a half of which it consists had 
 been knocked up cheaply, by carpenters I should 
 say rather than masons, and the general effect is 
 of a brightly coloxured van that has stuck for ever 
 on its way through the passage. 
 
 The low houses of London look so much more 
 homely than the tall ones that I never pass them 
 without dropping a blessing on their builders, but 
 this house was ridiculous; indeed it did not call 
 itself a house, for over the door was a board with 
 the inscription "This space to be sold," and I re- 
 membered, as I rang the bell, that this notice had 
 been up for years. On avowing that I wanted a 
 space, I was admitted by an elderly, somewhat 
 dejected looking female, whose fine figure was not 
 on scale with her surroundings. Perhaps my face 
 said so, for her first remark was explanatory. 
 
 "They get me cheap," she said, "because I 
 Brink." 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 I bowed, and we passed on to the drawing-room. 
 I forget whether I have described Mary's personal 
 appearance, but if so you have a picture of that 
 sunny drawing-room. My first reflection was, How 
 can she have found the money to pay for it all! 
 which is always your first reflection when you see 
 Mary Kerself a-tripping down the street. 
 
 I have no space (in that little room) to cata- 
 logue all the whim-whams with which she had made 
 it beautiful, from the hand-sewn bell-rope which 
 pulled no bell to the hand-painted cigar-box that 
 contained no cigars. The floor was of a delicious 
 green with exqxiisite oriental rugs; green and 
 white, I think, was the lady's scheme of colour, 
 something cool, you observe, to keep the sun under. 
 The window-curtains were of some rare material 
 and the colour of the purple clematis; they swept 
 the floor grandly and suggested a picture of Mary 
 receiving visitors. The piano we may ignore, for I 
 knew it to be hired, but there were many dainty 
 pieces, mostly in green wood, a sofa, a corner cup- 
 board, and a most captivating desk, which was so 
 like its owner that it could have sat down at her 
 34 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 and dashed ofF a note. The writing paper on this 
 desk had the word Mary printed on it, implying 
 that if there were other Marys they didn't count. 
 There were many oil-paintings on the walls, mostly 
 without frames, and I must mention the chandelier, 
 which was obviously of fabulous worth, for she 
 had encased it in a hoUand bag. 
 
 "I perceive, ma'am," said I to the stout maid, 
 "that your master is in affluent circumstances." 
 
 She shook her head emphatically, and said some- 
 thing that I failed to catch. 
 
 "You wish to indicate," I hazarded, "that he 
 married a fortune." 
 
 This time I caught the words. They were 
 "Tinned meats," and having uttered them she 
 lapsed into gloomy silence. 
 
 "Nevertheless," I said, "this room must have 
 cost a pretty penny." 
 
 "She done it all herself," replied my new friend, 
 with concentrated scorn. 
 
 "But this green floor, so beautifully stained — " 
 
 "Boiling oil," said she, with a flush of honest 
 shame, "and a shillingsworth o' paint." 
 35 
 
theYittle white bird 
 
 "Those rugs " 
 
 "Remnants," she sighed, and showed me how 
 artfully they had been pieced together. 
 
 "The curtains ^" 
 
 "Remnants." 
 
 "At all events the sofa ^" 
 
 She raised its drapery, and I saw that the sofa 
 was built of packing cases. 
 
 "The desk » 
 
 I really thought that I was safe this time, for 
 could I not see the drawers with their brass han- 
 dles, the charming shelf for books, the pigeon- 
 holes with their coverings of sSk? 
 
 "She made it out of three orange boxes," said 
 the lady, at last a little awed herself. 
 
 I looked around me despairingly, and my eye 
 alighted on the hoUand covering. " There is a 
 fine chandelier in that holland bag," I said coax- 
 ingly. 
 
 She sniffed and was raising an untender hand, 
 
 when I checked her. "Forbear, ma'am," I cried 
 
 with authority, " I prefer to believe in that bag. 
 
 How much to be pitied, ma'am, are those who have 
 
 36 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 lost faith in everything." I think all the pretty 
 things that the little nursery governess had made 
 out of nothing squeezed my hand for letting the 
 chandelier off, 
 
 " But, good God, ma'am," said I to madam, 
 "what an exposure." i 
 
 She intimated that there were other exposures 
 upstairs. 
 
 "So there is a stair," said I, and then, suspi- 
 ciously, "did she make it?" 
 
 No, but how she had altered it. 
 
 The stair led to Mary's bedroom, and I said I 
 would not look at that, nor at the studio, which was 
 a shed in the garden. 
 
 "Did she build the studio with her own hands?" 
 
 No, but how she had altered it. 
 
 "How she alters everything," I said. "Do you 
 think you are safe, ma'am?" 
 
 She thawed a Httle under my obvious sympathy 
 and honoured me with some of her views and con- 
 fidences. The rental paid by Mary and her husband 
 was not, it appeared, one on which any self-respect- 
 ing domestic could reflect with pride. Thej got 
 S7 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the house very cheap on the understanding that 
 they were to vacate it promptly if anyone bought 
 it for building purposes, and because they paid so 
 little they had to submit to the indignity of the 
 
 notice-board. Mary A detested the words 
 
 "This space to be sold," and had been known to 
 shake her fist at them. She was as elated about her 
 house as if it were a real house, and always trembled 
 when any possible purchaser of spaces called. 
 ! As I have told you my own aphorism I feel I 
 ought in fairness to record that of this aggrieved 
 servant. It was on the subject of art. "The diffi- 
 culty," she said, "is not to paint pictures, but to 
 get frames for them." A home thrust this. 
 
 She could not honestly say that she thought 
 much of her master's work. Nor, apparently, did 
 any other person. Result, tinned meats. 
 
 Yes, one person thought a deal of it, or pre- 
 tended to do so; was constantly flinging up her 
 hands in delight over it; had even been caught 
 whispering fiercely to a friend, "Praise it, praise 
 it, praise it !" This was when the painter was sunk 
 in gloom. Never, as I could well believe, was such 
 38 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 a one as Mary for luring a man back to cheerful- 
 ness. 
 
 "A dangerous woman," I said, with a shudder, 
 and fell to examining a painting over the mantel- 
 shelf. It was a portrait of a man, and had impressed 
 me favourably because it was framed. 
 
 "A friend of hers," my guide informed me, "but 
 I never seed him." 
 
 I would have turned away from it, had not an 
 inscription on the picture drawn me nearer. It was 
 in a lady's handwriting, and these were the words : 
 "Fancy portrait of our dear unknown." Could it 
 be meant for me? I cannot tell you how Interested 
 I suddenly became. 
 
 It represented a very fine looking fellow, indeed, 
 and not a day more than thirty. 
 
 "A friend of hers, ma'am, did you say?" I asked 
 quite shakily. "Hotv do you know that, if you have 
 never seen him?" 
 
 "When master was painting of it," she said, "In 
 the studio, he used to come running in here to say 
 to her such like as, 'What colour would you make 
 his eyes?"' 
 
 39 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD ^ 
 "And her reply, ma'am?" I asked eagerly. 
 "She said, 'Beautiful blue eyes.' And he said, 
 'You wouldn't make it a handsome face, would 
 you?' and she says, 'A very handsome face.' And 
 says he, 'Middle-aged?' and says she, 'Twenty- 
 nine.' And I mind him saying, 'A little bald on the 
 top ?' and she says, says she, 'Not at all.' " 
 
 The dear, grateful girl, not to make me bald on 
 the top. 
 
 "I have seed her kiss her hand to that picture," 
 said the maid. 
 
 Fancy Mary kissing her hand to me! Oh, the 
 pretty love ! 
 ; Pooh! 
 
 I was staring at the picture, cogitating what in- 
 sulting message I could write on it, when I heard 
 the woman's voice again. "I think she has known 
 him since she were a babby," she was saying, "for 
 this here was a present he give her." 
 
 She was on her knees drawing the doll's house 
 
 from beneath the sofa, where it had been hidden 
 
 away ; and immediately I thought, "I shall slip the 
 
 insulting message into this." But I did not, and I 
 
 40 
 
HER MARRIAGE 
 
 shall teU you why. It was because the engaging toy 
 had been redecorated by loving hands; there were 
 fresh gowns for all the inhabitants, and the paint 
 on the fittniture was scarcely dry. The little doll's 
 house was almost ready for further use. 
 
 I looked at the maid, but her face was expres- 
 sionless. "Put it back," I said, ashamed to have 
 surprised Mary's pretty secret, and I left the house 
 dejectedly, with a profound conviction that the 
 little nursery governess had hooked on to me again. 
 
 41 
 
IV 
 
 A NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 A HERE came a night when the husband was 
 alone in that street waiting. He can do nothing 
 for you now, little nursery; governess, you must 
 fight it out by yourself; when there are great 
 things to do in the house the man must leave. Oh, 
 man, selfish, indelicate, coarse-grained at the best, 
 thy woman's hour has come; get thee gone. 
 
 He slouches from the house, always her true 
 lover I do believe, chivalrous, brave, a boy until 
 to-night; but was he ever unkind to her? It is the 
 unpardonable sin now; is there the memory of an 
 unkindness to stalk the street with him to-night? 
 And if not an unkindness, still might he not some- 
 times have been a little kinder? 
 
 Shall we make a new rule of life from to-night: 
 always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary? 
 
 Poor youth, she would come to the window if she 
 were able, I am sure, to sign that the one little un- 
 42 
 
A NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 kindness is long forgotten, to send you a reassur- 
 ing smile till you and she meet again ; and, if you 
 are not to meet again, still to send you a reassur- 
 ing, trembling smile. 
 
 Ah, no, that was for yesterday; it is too late 
 now. He wanders the streets thinking of her to- 
 night, but she has forgotten him. In her great 
 hour the man is nothing to the woman ; their love is 
 trivial now. 
 
 He and I were on opposite sides of the street, 
 now become familiar ground to both of us, and 
 divers pictures rose before me in which Mary 
 
 A walked. Here was the morning after my 
 
 only entry into her house. The agent had promised 
 me to have the obnoxious notice-board removed, 
 but I apprehended that as soon as the letter an- 
 nouncing his intention reached her she would re- 
 move it herself, and when I passed by in the morn- 
 ing there she was on a chair and a foot-stool 
 pounding lustily at it with a hammer. When it 
 fell she gave it such a vicious little kick. 
 
 There were the nights when her husband came 
 out to ^atch for the postman. I suppose he was 
 4,3 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 awaiting some letter big with the fate of a picture. 
 He dogged the postman from door to door like 
 an assassin or a guardian angel; never had he 
 the courage to ask if there was a letter for him, 
 but almost as it fell into the box he had it out 
 and tore it open, and then if the door closed de- 
 spairingly the woman who had been at the window 
 all this time pressed her hand to her heart. But if 
 the news was good they might emerge presently 
 and strut off arm in arm in the direction of the 
 pork emporium. 
 
 One last picture. On summer evenings I had 
 caught glimpses of them through the open win- 
 dow, when she sat at the piano singing and play- 
 ing to him. Or while she played with one hand, 
 she flung out the other for him to grasp. She was 
 so joyously happy, and she had such a romantic 
 mind. I conceived her so sympathetic that she al- 
 ways laughed before he came to the joke, and I 
 am sure she had filmy eyes from the very start of 
 a pathetic story. 
 
 And so, laughing and crying, and haunted by 
 whispers, the little nursery governess had grad- 
 
A NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 ually become another woman, glorified, mysterious. 
 I suppose a man soon becomes used to the great 
 change, and cannot recall a time when there were 
 no babes sprawling in his Mary's face. 
 
 I am trying to conceive what were the thoughts 
 of the young husband on the other side of the 
 street. "If the barrier is to be crossed to-night 
 may I not go with her? She is not so brave as you 
 think her. When she talked so gaily a few hours 
 ago, O my God, did she deceive even you?" 
 
 Plain questions to-night. "Why should it all fall 
 on her? What is the man that he should be flung 
 out into the street in this terrible hour? You have 
 not been fair to the man." 
 
 Poor boy, his wife has quite forgotten him and 
 his trumpery love. If she lives she will come back 
 to him, but if she dies she will die triumphant 
 and serene. Life and death, the child and the 
 mother, are ever meeting as the one draws into 
 harbour and the other sets sail. They exchange a 
 bright "All's well" and pass on. 
 
 But afterward? 
 
 The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this 
 45 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 world, are dead young mothers, returned to see how 
 their children fare. There is no other inducement 
 great enough to bring the departed back. They 
 glide into the acquainted room when day and 
 night, their jailers, are in the grip, and whisper, 
 "How is it with you, my child.-"' but always, lest 
 a strange face should frighten him, they whisper 
 it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him 
 to see that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his 
 sweet arm beneath the coverlet, and they open the 
 drawers to count how many Uttle vests he has. 
 They love to do these things. 
 
 What is saddest about ghosts is that they 
 may not know their child. They expect him to be 
 just as he was when they left him, and they are 
 easily bewildered, and search for him from room 
 to room, and hate the unknown boy he has become. 
 Poor, passionate souls, they may even do him an 
 injury. These are the ghosts that go wailing about 
 old houses, and foolish wild stories are invented to 
 explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I know 
 of a man who, after wandering far, returned to 
 his early home to pass the evening of his days in 
 46 
 
A NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 it, and sometimes from his chair by the fire he saw 
 the door open softly and a woman's face appear. 
 She always looked at him very vindictively, and 
 then vanished. Strange things happened in this 
 house. Windows were opened in the night. The cur- 
 tains of his bed were set fire to. A step on the stair 
 was loosened. The covering of an old well in a cor- 
 ridor where he walked was cunningly removed. And 
 when he fell ill the wrong potion was put in the 
 glass by his bedside, and he died. How could the 
 pretty young mother know that this grizzled 
 interloper was the child of whom she was in 
 search? 
 
 All our notions about ghosts are wrong. It is 
 nothing so petty as lost wills or deeds of violence 
 that brings them back, and we are not nearly so 
 afraid of them as they are of us. 
 
 One by one the lights of the street went out, but 
 still a lamp burned steadily in the little window 
 across the way. I know not how it happened, 
 whether I had crossed first to him or he to me, but, 
 after being for a long time as the echo of each 
 other's steps, we were together now. I can have had 
 47 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 no desire to deceive him, but some reason was needed 
 to account for my vigil, and I may have said some- 
 thing that he misconstrued, for above my words he 
 was always listening for other sounds. But however 
 it came about he had conceived the Idea that I was 
 an outcast for a reason similar to his own, and I let 
 his mistake pass, it seemed to matter so little and to 
 draw us together so naturally. We talked together 
 of many things, such as worldly ambition. For long 
 ambition has been like an ancient memory to me, 
 some glorious day recalled from my springtime, so 
 much a thing of the past that I must make a rail- 
 way journey to revisit it as to look upon the pleas- 
 ant fields in which that scene was laid. But he had 
 been ambitious yesterday. 
 
 I mentioned worldly ambition. "Good God!" he 
 said with a shudder. 
 
 There was a clock hard by that struck the quar- 
 ters, and one o'clock passed and two. What time is 
 it now? Twenty past two. And now? It is stiD 
 twenty past two. 
 
 I asked him about his refetives, and neither he 
 nor she had any. "We have a friend — " he began 
 48 
 
A NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 and paused, and then rambled into a not very un- 
 derstandable story about a letter and a doU's house 
 and some unknown man who had bought one of his 
 pictures, or was supposed to have done so, in a 
 curiously clandestine manner. I could not quite fol- 
 low the story. 
 
 "It is she who insists that it is always the same 
 person," he said. "She thinks he will make himself 
 known to me if anything happens to her." His 
 voice suddenly went husky. "She told me," he said, 
 "if she died and I discovered him, to give him her 
 love." 
 
 At this we parted abruptly, as we did at intervals 
 throughout the night, to drift together again pres- 
 ently. He tried to tell me of some things she had 
 asked him to do should she not get over this, but 
 what they were I know not, for they engulfed him 
 at the first step. He would draw back from them as 
 ill-omened things, and next moment he was going 
 over them to himself like a child at lessons. A child ! 
 In that short year she had made him entirely de- 
 pendent on her. It is ever thus with women: their 
 first deliberate act is to make their husband help- 
 49 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 less. There are few men happily married who can 
 knock in a nail. 
 
 But it was not of this that I was thinking. I was 
 wishing I had not degenerated so much. 
 
 Well, as you know, the little nursery governess 
 did not die. At eighteen minutes to four we heard 
 the rustle of David's wings. He boasts about it to 
 this day, and has the hour to a syllable as if the 
 first thing he ever did was to look at the clock. 
 
 An oldish gentleman had opened the door and 
 waved congratulations to my companion, who im- 
 mediately butted at me, drove me against a wall, 
 hesitated for a second with his head down as if in 
 doubt whether to toss me, and then rushed away. I 
 followed slowly. I shook him by the hand, but by 
 this time he was haw-haw-Aamng so abominably 
 that a disgust of him swelled up within me, and 
 with it a passionate desire to jeer once more at 
 Mary A 
 
 "It is little she will care for you now," I said to 
 the fellow ; "I know the sort of woman ; her intel- 
 lectuals (which are all she has to distinguish her 
 from the brutes) are so imperfectly developed that 
 60 
 
A NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 she will be a crazy thing about that boy for the 
 next three years. She has no longer occasion for 
 you, my dear sir; you are like a picture painted 
 out." 
 
 But I question whether he heard me. I returned 
 to my home. Home ! As if one alone can build a nest. 
 How often as I have ascended the stairs that lead 
 to my lonely, sumptuous rooms, have I paused to 
 listen to the hilarity of the servants below. That 
 morning I could not rest: I wandered from chamber 
 to chamber, followed by my great dog, and all 
 were alike empty and desolate. I had nearly finished 
 a cigar when I thought I heard a pebble strike the 
 window, and looking out I saw David's father 
 standing beneath. I had told him that I lived in 
 this street, and I suppose my lights had guided him 
 to my window. 
 
 "I could not lie down," he called up hoarsely, 
 "untn I heard your news. Is it all right?" 
 
 For a moment I failed to understand him. Then 
 I said sourly : "Yes, all is right." 
 
 "Both doing well.''" he inquired. 
 
 "Both," I answered, and all the time I was try- 
 51 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 ing to shut the window. It was undoubtedly a kind- 
 ly impulse that had brought him out, but I was 
 nevertheless in a passion with him. 
 
 "Boy or girl.!"' persisted the dodderer with un- 
 gentlemanlike curiosity. 
 
 "Boy," I said, very furiously. 
 
 "Splendid," he called out, and I think he added 
 something else, but by that time I had closed the 
 window with a slairi. 
 
 52 
 
V 
 
 THE FIGHT FOE TIMOTHY 
 
 JjAARY'S poor pretentious babe screamed contin- 
 ually, with a note of exultation in his din, as if he 
 thought he was devoting himself to a life of pleas- 
 ure, and often the last sound I heard as I got me 
 out of the street was his haw-haw-ft^w, delivered 
 triumphantly as if it were some entirely new thing, 
 though he must have learned it Hke a parrot. I had 
 not one tear for the woman, but Poor father, 
 thought I; to know that every time your son is 
 happy you are betrayed. Phew, a nauseous 
 draught. 
 
 I have the acquaintance of a deliciously pretty 
 girl, who is always sulky, and the thoughtless be- 
 seech her to be bright, not witting wherein lies her 
 heroism. She was bom the merriest of maids, but, 
 being a student of her face, learned anon that sulki- 
 ness best becomes it, and so she has struggled and 
 prevailed. A woman's history. Brave Margaret, 
 53 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 when night falls and thy hair is down, dost thou 
 return, I wonder, to thy natural state, or, dreading 
 the shadow of indulgence, sleepest thou even sul- 
 kily? 
 
 But wiU a male child do as much for his father? 
 This remains to be seen, and so, after waiting sev- 
 eral months, I decided to buy David a rocking- 
 horse. My St. Bernard dog accompanied me, 
 though I have always been diffident of taking him 
 to toy-shops, which over-excite him. Hitherto the 
 toys I had bought had always been for him, and 
 as we durst not admit this to the saleswoman we 
 were both horribly self-conscious when in the shop. 
 A score of times I have told him that he had much 
 better not come, I have announced fiercely that he 
 is not to come. He then lets go of his legs, which 
 is how a St. Bernard sits down, making the noise 
 of a sack of coals suddenly deposited, and, laying 
 his head between his front paws, stares at me 
 through the red haws that make his eyes so mourn- 
 ful. He will do this for an hour without blinking, 
 for he knows that in time it wiU. unman me. My dog 
 knows very little, but what little he does know he 
 54 
 
THE FIGHT FOR TIMOTHY 
 
 knows extraordinarily well. One can get out of my 
 chambers by a back way, and I sometimes steal 
 softly — ^but I can't help looking back, and there he 
 is, and there are those haws asking sorrowfully, 
 "Is this worthy of you?" 
 
 "Curse you," I say, "get your hat," or words 
 to that effect. 
 
 He has even been to the club, where he waddles 
 up the stairs so exactly like some respected member 
 that he makes everybody most uncomfortable. I 
 forget how I became possessor of him. I think I cut 
 him out of an old number of Punch. He costs me 
 as much as an eight-roomed cottage in the country. 
 
 He was a full-grown dog when I first, most fool- 
 ishly, introduced him to toys. I had bought a toy 
 in the street for my own amusement. It represented 
 a woman, a young mother, flinging her little son 
 over her head with one hand and catching him in 
 the other, and I was entertaining myself on the 
 hearth-rug with this pretty domestic scene when I 
 heard an unwonted sound from Porthos, and, look- 
 ing up, I saw that noble and melancholic counte- 
 nance on the broad grin. I shuddered and was for 
 55 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 putting the toy away at once, but he sternly struck 
 down my arm with his, and signed that I was to 
 continue. The unmanly chuckle always came, I 
 found, when the poor lady dropped her babe, but 
 the whole thing entranced him ; he tried to keep his 
 excitement down by taking huge draughts of 
 water; he forgot all his niceties of conduct; he sat 
 in holy rapture with the toy between his paws, took 
 it to bed with him, ate it in the night, and searched 
 for it so longingly next day that I had to go 
 out and buy him the man with the scythe. After 
 that we had everything of note, the bootblack boy, 
 the toper with bottle, the woolly rabbit that 
 squeaks when you hold it in your mouth; they all 
 vanished as inexplicably as the lady, but I dared 
 not tell him my suspicions, for he suspected also 
 and his gentle heart would have mourned had I 
 confirmed his fears. 
 
 The dame in the temple of toys which we fre- 
 quent thinks I want them for a little boy and calls 
 him "the precious" and "the lamb," the while 
 Porthos is standing gravely by my side. She is 
 a motherly soul, but over-talkative. 
 56 
 
THE FIGHT FOR TIMOTHY 
 
 "And how is the dear lamb to-day?" she begins, 
 beaming. 
 
 "Well, ma'am, well," I say, keeping tight grip 
 of his collar. 
 
 "This blighty weather is not affecting his dar- 
 ling appetite?" 
 
 "No, ma'am, not at all." (She would be con- 
 siderably surprised if informed that he dined to- 
 day on a sheepshead, a loaf, and three cabbages, 
 and is suspected of a leg of mutton.) 
 
 "I hope he loves his toys ?" 
 
 "He carries them about with him everywhere, 
 ma'am." (Has the one we bought yesterday with 
 him now, though you might not think it to look at 
 him.) 
 5 "What do you say to a box of tools this 
 time?" 
 
 "I think not, ma'am." 
 
 "Is the deary fond of digging?" 
 
 "Very partial to digging." (We shall find the 
 kg of mutton some day. ) 
 
 "Then perhaps a weeny spade and a pail?" 
 
 She got me to buy a model of Canterbury 
 57 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Cathedral once, she was so insistent, and Porthos 
 gave me his mind about it when we got home. He 
 detests the kindergarten system, and as she is ab- 
 surdly prejudiced in its favour we have had to try 
 other shops. We went to the Lowther Arcade for 
 the rocking-horse. Dear Lowther Arcade ! Ofttimes 
 have we wandered agape among thy enchanted 
 palaces, Porthos and I, David and I, David 
 and Porthos and I. I have heard that thou 
 art vulgar, but I cannot see how, unless it be that 
 tattered children haunt thy portals, those awful yet 
 smiling entrances to so much joy. To the Arcade 
 there are two entrances, and with much to be sung 
 in laudation of that which opens from the Strand 
 I yet on the whole prefer the other as the more truly 
 romantic, because it is there the tattered ones con- 
 gregate, waiting to see the Davids emerge with the 
 magic lamp. We have always a penny for them, 
 and I have known them, before entering the Arcade 
 with it, retire (but whither.'') to wash; surely the 
 prettiest of all the compliments that are paid to 
 the home of toys. 
 
 And now, O Arcade, so much fairer than thy 
 58 
 
THE FIGHT FOR TIMOTHY 
 
 West End brother, we are told that thou art 
 doomed, anon to be turned into an eatinghouse or a 
 hive for usurers, something rankly useful. All thy 
 delights are under notice to quit. The Noah's arks 
 are packed one within another, with clockwork 
 horses harnessed to them ; the soldiers, knapsack on 
 back, are kissing their hands to the dear foolish 
 girls, who, however, will not be left behind them ; all 
 the four-footed things gather around the elephant, 
 who is overf ul of drawing-room furniture ; the birds 
 flutter their wings ; the man with the scythe mows 
 his way through the crowd; the balloons tug at 
 their strings ; the ships rock under a swell of sail, 
 everything is getting ready for the mighty exodus 
 into the Strand. Tears wUl be shed. 
 
 So we bought the horse in the Lowther Arcade, 
 Porthos, who thought it was for him, looking 
 proud but uneasy, and it was sent to the bandbox 
 house anonymously. About a week afterward I had 
 the ill-luck to meet Mary's husband in Kensington, 
 so I asked him what he had called his little girl. 
 
 "It is a boy," he replied, with intolerable good- 
 Humour, "we call him David." 
 59 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 [A.nd then with a singiilar lack of taste he wanted 
 the name of my boy. 
 
 I flicked my glove. "Timothy," said I. ~ 
 
 I saw a suppressed smile on his face, and said 
 hotly that Timothy was as good a name as David. 
 "I nke it," he assured me, and expressed a hope that 
 they would become friends. I boiled to say that I 
 really could not allow Timothy to mix with boys of 
 the David class, but I refrained, and listened coldly 
 while he told me what David did when you said 
 his toes were pigs going to market or returning 
 from it, I forget which. He also boasted of David's 
 weight (a subject about which we are uncommonly 
 touchy at the club), as if children were for throw- 
 ing forth for a wager. 
 
 But no more about Timothy. Gradually this 
 vexed me. I felt what a forlorn little chap Timothy 
 was, with no one to say a word for him, and I be- 
 came his champion and hinted something about 
 teething, but withdrew it when It seemed too sur- 
 prising, and tried to get on to safer ground, such 
 as bibs and general intelligence, but the painter 
 fellow was so willing to let me have my say, and 
 60 
 
THE FIGHT FOR TIMOTHY 
 
 knew so much more about babies than is fitting for 
 men to know, that I paled before him and wondered 
 why the deuce he was listening to me so atten- 
 tively. 
 
 You may remember a story he had told me about 
 some anonymous friend. "His latest," said he now, 
 "is to send David a rocking-horse !" 
 
 I must say I could see no reason for his mirth. 
 "Picture it," said he, "a rocking-horse for a child 
 not three months old!" 
 
 I was about to say fiercely: "The stirrups are 
 adjustable," but thought it best to laugh with him. 
 But I was pained to hear that Mary had laughed, 
 though heaven knows I have often laughed at her. 
 
 "But women are odd," he said unexpectedly, and 
 explained. It appears that in the middle of her 
 merriment Mary had become grave and said to him 
 quite haughtily, "I see nothing to laugh at." Then 
 she had kissed the horse solemnly on the nose and 
 said, "I wish he was here to see me do it." There 
 are moments when one cannot help feeling a draw- 
 ing to Mary. 
 
 But moments only, for the next thing he said 
 61 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 put her in a particularly odious light. He in- 
 formed me that she had sworn to hunt Mr. Anon 
 down. 
 
 "She won't succeed," I said, sneering but ner- 
 vous. 
 
 "Then it will be her first failure," said he. 
 
 "But she knows nothing about the man." 
 
 "You would not say that if you heard her talk- 
 ing of him. She says he is a gentle, whimsical, 
 lonely old bachelor." 
 
 "Old.?" I cried. 
 
 "Well, what she says is that he will soon be old 
 If he doesn't take care. He is a bachelor at all 
 events, and is very fond of children, but has never 
 had one to play with." 
 
 "Could not play with a child though there was 
 one," I said brusquely; "has forgotten the way; 
 could stand and stare only." 
 
 "Yes, if the parents were present. But he thinks 
 that if he were alone with the child he could coma 
 out strong." 
 
 "How the deuce " I began 
 
 "That is what she says," he explained, apolo- 
 62 
 
THE FIGHT FOR TIMOTHY 
 
 getically. "I think she will prove to be too clever 
 for him." 
 
 "Pooh," I said, but undoubtedly I felt a dizzi- 
 ness, and the next time I met him he quite fright- 
 ened me. "Do you happen to know any one," he 
 said, "who has a St. Bernard dog.?" 
 
 "No," said I, picking up my stick. 
 
 "He has a St. Bernard dog." 
 
 "How have you found that out.?" 
 
 "She has found it out." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 I left him at once, for Porthos was but a little 
 way behind me. The mystery of it scared me, but 
 I armed promptly for battle. I engaged a boy to 
 walk Porthos in Kensington Gardens, and gave him 
 these instructions: "Should you find yourself fol- 
 lowed by a young woman wheeling a second-hand 
 perambulator, instantly hand her over to the 
 police on the charge of attempting to steal the 
 dog." 
 
 Now then, Mary. 
 
 "By the way," her husband said at our next 
 63 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 meeting, "that rocking-horse I told you of cost 
 three guineas." 
 
 "She has gone to the shop to ask?" 
 
 "No, not to ask that, hut for a description of 
 the purchaser's appearance." 
 
 Oh, Mary, Mary. 
 
 Here is the appearance of purchaser as sup- 
 plied at the Arcade : — ^looked like a military gentle- 
 man ; taU, dark, and rather dressy ; fine Roman nose 
 (quite so), carefully trimmed moustache going grey 
 (not at all) ; hair thin and thoughtfully distrib- 
 uted over the head like fiddlestrings, as if to make 
 the most of it (pah!) ; dusted chair with handker- 
 chief before sitting down on it, and had other old- 
 maidish ways (I should like to know what they 
 are); tediously polite, but no talker; bored face; 
 age forty-five if a day (a lie) ; was accompanied 
 by an enormous yeUow dog with sore eyes. (They 
 always think the haws are sore eyes.) 
 
 "Do you know anyone who is like that.!"' Mary's 
 husband asked me innocently. 
 
 "My dear man," I said, "I know almost no one 
 who is not like that," and it was true, so like each 
 64 
 
THE FIGHT FOR TIMOTHY 
 
 other do we grow at the club. I was pleased, on the 
 whole, with this talk, for it at least showed me how 
 she had come to know of the St. Bernard, but anx- 
 iety returned when one day from behind my cur- 
 tains I saw Mary in my street with an inquiring 
 eye on the windows. She stopped a nurse who was 
 carrying a baby and went into pretended ecstasies 
 over it. I was sure she also asked whether by any 
 chance it was called Timothy. And if not, whether 
 that nurse knew any other nurse who luid charge 
 of a Timothy. 
 
 Obviously Mary suspicioned me, but nevertheless, 
 I clung to Timothy, though I wished fervently that 
 I knew more about him; for I still met that other 
 father occasionally, and he always stopped to com- 
 pare notes about the boys. And the questions he 
 asked were so intimate, how Timothy slept, how he 
 woke up, how he fell off again, what we put in his 
 bath. It is well that dogs and little boys have so 
 much in common, for it was really of Porthos I 
 told him; how he slept (peacefully), how he woke 
 up (supposed to be subject to dreams), how he 
 fell off again (with one little hand on his nose), 
 65 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 but I glided past what we put in his bath (carboUc 
 and a mop). 
 
 The man had not the least suspicion of me, and 
 I thought it reasonable to hope that Mary would 
 prove as generous. Yet was I straitened in my mind. 
 For it might be that she was only biding her time 
 to strike suddenly, and this attached me the more 
 to Timothy, as if I feared she might soon snatch 
 him from me. As was indeed to be the case. 
 
 66 
 
yi 
 
 A SHOCK 
 
 XT was on a May day, and I saw Mary accompany 
 her husband as far as the first crossing, whence she 
 waved him out of sight as if he had boarded an 
 Atlantic-liner. All this time she wore the face of 
 a woman happily married who meant to go straight 
 home, there to await her lord's glorious return ; and 
 the military-looking gentleman watching her with 
 a bored smile saw nothing better before him than 
 a chapter on the Domestic Felicities. Oh, Mary, can 
 you not provide me with the tiniest little plot? 
 
 Hallo! 
 
 No sooner was she hid from him than she 
 changed into another woman; she was now become 
 a calculating purposeful madam, who looked 
 around her covertly and, having shrunk in size in 
 order to appear less noticeable, set off nervously 
 on some mysterious adventure. 
 67 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "The deuce !" thought I, and followed her. 
 
 Like one anxious to keep an appointment, she 
 frequently consulted her watch, looking long at it, 
 as. if it were one of those watches that do not 
 give up their secret until you have made a mental 
 calculation. Once she kissed it. I had always known 
 that she was fond of her cheap little watch, which 
 he gave her, I think, on the day I dropped the 
 letter, but why kiss it in the street.'' Ah, and why 
 then replace it so hurriedly in your leather-belt, 
 Mary, as if it were guilt to you to kiss to-day, or 
 any day, the watch your husband gave you? 
 
 It will be seen that I had made a very rapid 
 journey from light thoughts to uneasiness. I 
 wanted no plot by the time she reached her desti- 
 nation, a street of tawdry shops. She entered none 
 of them, but paced slowly and shrinking from ob- 
 servation up and down the street, a very figure of 
 shame; and never had I thought to read shame in 
 
 the sweet face of Mary A . Had I crossed to 
 
 her and pronounced her name I think it would have 
 
 feUed her, and yet she remained there, waiting. 
 
 I, too, was waiting for him, wondering if this was 
 
 68 
 
A SHOCK 
 
 the man, or this, or this, and I believe I clutched 
 my stick. 
 
 Did I suspect Mary? Oh, surely not for a mo- 
 ment of time. But there was some foolishness here ; 
 she was come without the knowledge of her hus- 
 band, as her furtive manner indicated, to a meeting 
 she dreaded and was ashamed to tell him of ; she was 
 come into danger ; then it must be to save, not her- 
 self but him ; the folly to be concealed could never 
 have been Mary's. Yet what could have happened 
 in the past of that honest boy from the conse- 
 quences of which she might shield him by skulking 
 here? Could that laugh of his have survived a dis- 
 honour? The open forehead, the curly locks, the 
 pleasant smile, the hundred ingratiating ways 
 which we carry with us out of childhood, they 
 may all remain when the innocence has fled, but 
 surely the laugh of the morning of life must go. 
 I have never known the devil retain his grip on 
 that. 
 
 But Mary was still waiting. She was no longer 
 beautiful; shame had possession of her face, she 
 was an ugly woman. Then the entanglement was 
 69 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 her husband's, and I cursed him for it. But without 
 conviction, for, after all, what did I know of 
 women? I have some distant memories of them, 
 some vain inventions. But of men — I have known 
 one man indifferent well for over forty years, have 
 exulted in him (odd to think of it), shuddered at 
 him, wearied of him, been willing (God forgive 
 me) to jog along with him tolerantly long after I 
 have found him out; I know something of men, 
 and, on my soul, boy, I believe I am wronging you. 
 
 Then Mary is here for some innocent purpose, 
 to do a good deed that were better undone, as it so 
 scares her. Turn back, you foolish, soft heart, and 
 I shall say no more about it. Obstinate one, you saw 
 the look on your husband's face as he left you. It 
 is the studio light by which he paints and still sees 
 to hope, despite all the disappointments of his not 
 ignoble ambitions. That light is the dower you 
 brought him, and he is a wealthy man if it does 
 not flicker. 
 
 So anxious to be gone, and yet she would not 
 go. Several times she made little darts,. as if at 
 last resolved to escape from that detestable street, 
 70 
 
A SHOCK 
 
 and faltered and returned like a bird to the weasel. 
 Again she looked at her watch and kissed it. 
 
 Oh, Mary, take flight. What madness is this? 
 Woman, be gone. 
 
 Suddenly she was gone. With one mighty effort 
 and a last terrified look round, she popped into a 
 pawnshop. 
 
 Long before she emerged I understood it all, I 
 think even as the door rang and closed on her ; why 
 the timid soul had sought a street where she was 
 unknown, why she crept so many times past that 
 abhorred shop before desperately venturing in, why 
 she looked so often at the watch she might never 
 see again. So desperately cumbered was Mary to 
 keep her little house over her head, and yet the 
 brave heart was retaining a smiling face for her 
 husband, who must not even know where her little 
 treasures were going. 
 
 It must seem monstrously cruel of me, but I was 
 now quite light-hearted again. Even when Mary 
 fled from the shop where she had left her watch, 
 and I had peace of mind to note how thin and 
 worn she had become, as if her baby was grown 
 71 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 too big for her slight arms, even then I was light- 
 hearted. Without attempting to follow her, I saun- 
 tered homeward humming a snatch of song with 
 a great deal of f al-de-lal-de-riddle-o in it, for I can 
 never remember words. I saw her enter another 
 shop, baby linen shop or some nonsense of that sort, 
 so it was plain for what she had popped her watch ; 
 but what cared I.? I continued to sing most beauti- 
 fully. I lunged gayly with my stick at a lamp-post 
 and missed it, whereat a street-urchin grinned, and 
 I winked at him and slipped two-pence down his 
 back. 
 
 I presume I would have chosen the easy way had 
 time been given me, but fate willed that I should 
 meet the husband on his homeward journey, and 
 his first remark inspired me to a folly. 
 
 "How is Timothy.'"' he asked; and the question 
 opened a way so attractive that I think no one 
 whose dull life craves for colour could have resisted 
 it. 
 
 "He is no more," I replied impulsively. 
 
 The painter was so startled that he gave utter- 
 72 
 
A SHOCK 
 
 ance to a very oath of pity, and I felt a sinking 
 myself, for in these hasty words my little boy was 
 gone, indeed ; all my bright dreams of Timothy, all 
 my efforts to shelter him from Mary's scorn, went 
 whistling down the wind. 
 
 T3 
 
VII 
 
 THE LAST OF TIMOTHY 
 
 ^ O accomplished a person as the reader must have 
 seen at once that I made away with Timothy in 
 order to give his little vests and pinafores and shoes 
 to David, and, therefore, dear sir or madam, rail 
 not overmuch at me for causing our painter pain. 
 Know, too, that though his sympathy ran free I 
 soon discovered many of his inquiries to be 
 prompted by a mere selfish desire to save his boy; 
 from the fate of mine. Such are parents. 
 
 He asked compassionately if there was anything 
 he could do for me, and, of course, there was some- 
 thing he could do, but were I to propose it I 
 doubted not he would be on his stilts at once, for 
 already I had reason to know him for a haughty, 
 sensitive dog, who ever became high at the first hint 
 of help. So the proposal must come from him. I 
 spoke of the many little things in the house that 
 74 
 
THE LAST OF TIMOTHY 
 
 were now hurtful to me to look upon, and he 
 clutched my hand, deeply moved, though it was an- 
 other house with its little things he saw. I was 
 ashamed to harass him thus, but he had. not a suf- 
 ficiency of the little things, and besides my im- 
 pulsiveness had plunged me into a deuce of a mess, 
 so I went on distastefully. Was there no profession 
 in this age of specialism for talking away children's 
 garments from houses where they were suddenly be- 
 come a pain ? Could I sell them .'' Could I give them 
 to the needy, who would probably dispose of them 
 for gin.'' I told him of a friend with a young child 
 who had already refused them because it would be 
 unpleasant to him to be reminded of Timothy, and 
 I think this was what touched him to the quick, so 
 that he made the offer I was waiting for. 
 
 I had done it with a heavy foot, and by this 
 time was in a rage with both him and myself, but 
 I always was a bungler, and, having adopted this 
 means in a hiuxy, I could at the time see no other 
 easy way out. Timothy's hold on hfe, as you may 
 have apprehended, was ever of the slightest, and I 
 suppose I eJways knew that he must soon revert to 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the obscure. He could never have penetrated into 
 the open. It was no life for a boy. 
 
 Yet now, that his time had come, I was loath to 
 see him go. I seem to remember carrying him that 
 evening to the window with uncommon tenderness 
 (following the setting sun that was to take him 
 away), and telling him with not unnatural bitter- 
 ness that he had got to leave me because another 
 child was in need of all his pretty things; and as 
 the sun, his true father, lapt him in its dancing 
 arms, he sent his love to a lady of long ago whom 
 he called by the sweetest of names, not knowing in 
 his innocence that the little white birds are the 
 birds that never have a mother. I wished (so had 
 the phantasy of Timothy taken possession of me) 
 that before he went he could have played once in 
 the Kensington Gardens, and have ridden on the 
 fallen trees, calling gloriously to me to look ; that 
 he could have sailed one paper-galleon on the 
 Round Pond ; fain would I have had him chase one 
 hoop a little way down the laughing avenues of 
 childhood, where memory tells us we run but once, 
 on a long summer-day, emerging at the other end 
 76 
 
THE LAST OF TIMOTHY 
 
 as men and women with all the fun to pay for; 
 and I think (thus fancy wantons with me in these 
 desolate chambers) he knew my longings, and said 
 with a boy-like flush that the reason he never did 
 these things was not that he was afraid, for he 
 would have loved to do them all, but because he was 
 not quite like other boys ; and, so saying, he let go 
 my finger and faded from before my eyes into an- 
 other and golden ether ; but I shall ever hold that 
 had he been quite like other boys there would have 
 been none braver than my Timothy. 
 
 I fear I am not truly brave myself, for though 
 when under fire, so far as I can recollect, I behaved 
 as others, morally I seem to be deficient. So I dis- 
 covered next day when I attempted to buy David's 
 outfit, and found myself as shy of entering the 
 shop as any Mary at the pawnbroker's. The shop 
 for little garments seems very alarming when you 
 reach the door; a man abruptly become a parent, 
 and thus lost to a finer sense of the proprieties, may 
 be able to stalk in unprotected, but apparently I 
 could not. Indeed, I have allowed a repugnance to 
 entering shops of any kind, save my tailor's, to 
 77 
 
thj: little white bird 
 
 grow on me, and to mj tailor's I fear I go too fre- 
 qtieDtly< 
 
 So I skulked near the «liop of the little gar- 
 ments, jeering at mytteif, and it wa« strange to me 
 to reject at, say, tiiree c^doek that if I had been 
 brazen at half -past two all wonld noir be over. 
 
 To show Trhat was my state, take the cas« of the 
 very gentlanan-like man irhom I deteded gazing 
 fixedly at me, or so I thoti|^, just an I had drawn 
 valiantly near tiie door. I sauntered away, but when 
 I returned he wa» stiU there, whidi seemed condo- 
 sive proof tiiat he had taadied my purpose. Sternly 
 amtrdiKng my temper I bowed, and said with icy 
 pditaiess, ''You have the advantage of me, sir." 
 
 ''I beg your pardon," said he, and I am now per- 
 suaded tiiat my words turned his attention to me 
 for the SxiA. time, but at the moment I was sure 
 some impertnient meaning hnked behind his 
 answer. 
 
 ''I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance," 
 I balked. 
 
 ''No one regrets it more than I do," be repUed, 
 laoj^uig; 
 
 78 
 
THE LAST OF TIMOTHY 
 
 "I mean, sir," said I, "that I shall wait here until 
 you retire," and with that I put my back to a shop- 
 window. 
 
 By this time he was grown angry, and said he, 
 "I have no engagement," and he put his back to 
 the shop-window. Each of us was doggedly deter- 
 mined to tire the other out, and we must have 
 looked ridiculous. We also felt it, for ten minutes 
 afterward, our passions having died away, we 
 shook hands cordially and agreed to call hansoms. 
 
 Must I abandon the enterprise.'' Certainly I knew 
 divers ladies who would make the purchases for me, 
 but first I must explain, and, rather than explain 
 it has ever been my custom to do without. I was in 
 this despondency when a sudden recollection of 
 Irene and Mrs. Kicking heartened me like a cor- 
 dial, for I saw in them at once the engine and decoy 
 by which David should procure his outfit. 
 
 You must be told who they were. 
 
 79 
 
vm 
 
 THE INCONSIDEEATE WAITER 
 
 1 HEY were the family of William, one of our 
 club waiters who had been disappointing me griev- 
 ously of late. Many a time have I deferred dining 
 several minutes that I might have the attendance of 
 this ingrate. His efforts to reserve the window-table 
 for me were satisfactory, and I used to allow him 
 privileges, as to suggest dishes; I have given him 
 information, as that someone had startled me in the 
 reading-room by slamming a door; I have shown 
 him how I cut my finger with a piece of string. 
 William was none of your assertive waiters. We 
 could have plotted a murder safely before him. It 
 was one member who said to him that Saucy Sarah 
 would win the Derby and another who said that 
 Saucy Sarah had no chance, but it was William 
 who agreed with both. The excellent fellow (as I 
 thought him) was like a cheroot which may be 
 smoked from either end. 
 
 I date his lapse from one evening when I was 
 80 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 dining by the window. I had to repeat my order 
 "Devilled kidney," and instead of answering 
 brightly, "Yes, sir," as if my selection of devilled 
 kidney was a personal gratification to him, which 
 is the manner one expects of a waiter, he gazed 
 eagerly out at the window, and then, starting, 
 asked, "Did you say devilled kidney, sir?" A few 
 minutes afterward I became aware that someone 
 was leaning over the back of my chair, and you 
 may conceive my indignation on discovering that 
 this rude person was William. Let me tell, in the 
 measured words of one describing a past incident, 
 what next took place. To get nearer the window 
 he pressed heavily on my shoulder. "William," I 
 said, "you are not attending to me !" 
 
 To be fair to him, he shook, but never shall I 
 forget his audacious apology, "Beg pardon, sir, 
 but I was thinking of something else." 
 
 And immediately his eyes resought the window, 
 and this burst from him passionately, "For God's 
 sake, sir, as we are man and man, tell me if you 
 have seen a little girl looking up at the club-win- 
 dows." 
 
 81 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Man and man ! But he had been a good waiter 
 once, so I pointed out the girl to him. As soon as 
 she saw William she ran into the middle of Pall 
 Mall, regardless of hansoms (many of which 
 seemed to pass over her), nodded her head signifi- 
 cantly three times and then disappeared (prob- 
 ably on a stretcher). She was the tawdriest little 
 Arab of about ten years, but seemed to have 
 brought relief to William. "Thank God !" said he 
 fervently, and in the worst taste. 
 
 I was as much horrified as if he had dropped a 
 plate on my toes. "Bread, William," I said sharply. 
 
 "You are not vexed with me, sir?" he had the 
 hardihood to whisper. 
 
 "It was a liberty," I said. 
 
 "I know, sir, but I was beside myself." 
 
 "That was a hberty again." 
 
 "It is my wife, sir, she " 
 
 So William, whom I had favoured in so many 
 ways, was a married man. I felt that this was the 
 greatest liberty of all. 
 
 I gathered that the troublesome woman was ail- 
 ing, and as one who likes after dinner to believe 
 82 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 that there is no distress in the world, I desired to 
 be told by William that the signals meant her re- 
 turn to health. He answered inconsiderately, how- 
 ever, that the doctor feared the worst. 
 
 "Bah, the doctor," I said in a rage. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said William. 
 
 "What is her confounded ailment?" 
 
 "She was alius one of the delicate kind, but full 
 of spirit, and you see, sir, she has had a baby-girl 
 lately » 
 
 "Wilham, how dare you," I said, but in the same 
 moment I saw that this father might be useful to 
 me. "How does your baby sleep, William.-'" I asked 
 in a low voice, "how does she wake up? what do 
 you put in her bath.''" 
 
 I saw surprise in his face, so I hurried on with- 
 out waiting for an answer. "That little girl comes 
 here with a message from your wife ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, every evening; she's my eldest, and 
 three nods from her means that the missus is a little 
 better." 
 
 "There were three nods to-day?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 83 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "I suppose you live in some low part, WiUiam?" 
 
 The impudent fellow looked as if he could have 
 struck me. "Off Drury Lane," he said, flushing, 
 "but it isn't low. And now," he groaned, "she's 
 af eared she wiU die without my being there to hold 
 her hand." 
 
 "She should not say such things." 
 
 "She never says them, sir. She alius pretends 
 to be feeling stronger. But I knows what is in her 
 mind when I am leaving the house in the morning, 
 for then she looks at me from her bed, and I looks at 
 her from the door — oh, my God, sir !" 
 
 "William!" 
 
 At last he saw that I was angry, and it was 
 characteristic of him to beg my pardon and with- 
 draw his wife as if she were some unsuccessful dish. 
 I tried to forget his vulgar story in billiards, but 
 he had spoiled my game, and next day to punish 
 him I gave my orders through another waiter. As 
 I had the window-seat, however, I could not but see 
 that the httle girl was late, and though this mat- 
 tered nothing to me and I had finished my dinner, 
 I lingered till she came. She not only nodded three 
 84 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 times but waved her hat, and I arose, having now 
 finished my dinner. 
 
 William came stealthily toward me. "Her tem- 
 perature has gone down, sir," he said, rubbing his 
 hands together. 
 
 "To whom are you referring?" I asked coldly, 
 and retired to the bUliard-room, where I played a 
 capital game. 
 
 I took pains to show William that I had for- 
 gotten his maunderings, but I observed the girl 
 nightly, and once, instead of nodding, she shook 
 her head, and that evening I could not get into 
 a pocket. Next evening there was no WiUiam in the 
 dining-room, and I thought I knew what had hap- 
 pened. But, chancing to enter the library rather 
 miserably, I was surprised to see him on a ladder 
 dusting books. We had the room practically to our- 
 selves, for though several members sat on chairs 
 holding books in their hands they were aU asleep, 
 and William descended the ladder to teU me his 
 blasting tale. He had sworn at a member ! 
 
 "I hardly knew what I was doing all day, sir, 
 
 for I had left her so weakly that " 
 
 85 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 I stamped my foot. 
 
 "I beg your pardon for speaking of her," he 
 had the grace to say. "But Irene had promised to 
 come every two hours ; and when she came about 
 four o'clock and I saw she was crying, it sort of 
 blinded me, sir, and I stumbled against a member, 
 
 Mr. B , and he said, 'Damn you!' Well, sir, I 
 
 had but touched him after all, and I was so broken 
 it sort of stung me to be treated so and I lost my 
 senses, and I said, 'Damn you!' " 
 
 His shamed head sank on his chest, and I think 
 some of the readers shuddered in their sleep. 
 
 "I was turned out of the dining-room at once, 
 and sent here until the committee have decided what 
 to do with me. Oh, sir, I am willing to go on my 
 knees to Mr. B " 
 
 How could I but despise a fellow who would be 
 thus abject for a pound a week.'' 
 
 "For if I have to tell her I have lost my place 
 she will just fall back and die." 
 
 "I forbid your speaking to me of that woman," 
 I cried wryly, "unless you can speak pleasantly," 
 and I left him to his fate and went off to look for , 
 86 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 B . "What is this story about your swearing 
 
 at one of the waiters?" I asked him. 
 
 "You mean about his swearing at me," said 
 B , reddening. 
 
 "I am glad that was it," I said, "for I could 
 not believe you guilty of such bad form. The ver- 
 sion which reached me was that you swore at each 
 other, and that he was to be dismissed and you 
 reprimanded." 
 
 "Who told you that.?" asked B , who is a 
 
 timid man. 
 
 "I am on the committee," I replied lightly, and 
 proceeded to talk of other matters, but presently 
 
 B , who had been reflecting, said: "Do you 
 
 know I fancy I was wrong in thinking that the 
 waiter swore at me, and I shall withdraw the charge 
 to-morrow." 
 
 I was pleased to find that William's troubles were 
 near an end without my having to interfere in his 
 behalf, and I then remembered that he would not 
 bo able to see the girl Irene from the library win- 
 dows, which are at the back of the club. I was look- 
 ing down at her, but she refrained from signalling 
 87 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 because she could not see William, and irritated 
 by her stupidity I went out and asked her how her 
 mother was. 
 
 "My," she ejaculated after a long scrutiny 
 of me, "I b'lieve you are one of them!" and she 
 gazed at me with delighted awe. I suppose William 
 tells them of our splendid doings. 
 
 The invalid, it appeared, was a bit better, and 
 this annoying child wanted to inform William that 
 she had took all the tapiocar. She was to indicate 
 this by licking an imaginary plate in the middle 
 of Pall Mall. I gave the little vulgarian a shilling, 
 and returned to the club disgusted. 
 
 "By the way, William," I said, "Mr. B is 
 
 to inform the committee that he was mistaken in 
 thinking you used improper language to him, so 
 you will doubtless be restored to the dining-room 
 to-morrow." 
 
 I had to add immediately, "Remember your 
 place, William." 
 
 "But Mr. B knows I swore," he insisted. 
 
 "A gentleman," I replied stiffly, "cannot remem- 
 ber for many hours what a waiter has said to him." 
 88 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 "No, sir, but " 
 
 To stop him I had to say, "And — ah — ^William, 
 your wife is decidedly better. She has eaten the 
 tapioca — all of it." 
 
 "How can you know, sir?" 
 
 "By an accident." 
 
 "Irene signed to the window?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then you saw her and went out and " 
 
 "How dare you, William?" 
 
 " Oh, sir, to do that for me ! May God bl " 
 
 "WilHam." 
 
 He was reinstated in the dining-room, but often 
 when I looked at him I seemed to see a dying wife 
 in his face, and so the relations between us were 
 still strained. But I watched the girl, and her pan- 
 tomime was so illuminating that I knew the sufferer 
 had again cleaned the platter on Tuesday, had 
 attempted a boiled egg on Wednesday (you should 
 have seen Irene chipping it in Pall Mall, and 
 putting in the salt), but was in a woful state of 
 relapse on Thursday. 
 
 "Is your mother very ill to-day. Miss Irene?" 
 89 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 I asked, as soon as I had drawn her out of range 
 of the club-windows. 
 
 "My!" she exclaimed a^ain, and I saw an 
 ecstatic look pass between her and a still smaller 
 girl with her, whom she referred to as a neigh- 
 bour. 
 
 I waited coldly. William's wife, I was informed, 
 had looked like nothing but a dead one till she got 
 the brandy. 
 
 "Hush, child," I said, shocked. "You don't know 
 how the dead look." 
 
 "Bless yer!" she replied. 
 
 Assisted by her friend, who was evidently enor- 
 mously impressed by Irene's intimacy with me, she 
 gave me a good deal of miscellaneous information, 
 as that William's real name was Mr. Hicking, but 
 that he was known in their street, because of the 
 number of his shirts, as Toff Hicking. That the 
 street held he should get away from the club be- 
 fore two in the morning, for his missus needed him 
 more than the club needed him. That WUliam re- 
 plied (very sensibly) that if the club was short of 
 waiters at supper-time some of the gentlemen might 
 90 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 be kept waiting for their marrow-bone. That he 
 sat up with his missus most of the night, and pre- 
 tended to her that he got some nice long naps at 
 the club. That what she talked to him about mostly 
 was the kid. That the kid was in another part of 
 Xiondon (in charge of a person called the old 
 woman), because there was an epidemic in Irene's 
 street. 
 
 "And what does the doctor say about your 
 mother?" 
 
 "He sometimes says she would have a chance if 
 she could get her kid back." 
 
 "Nonsense." 
 
 "And if she was took to the country." 
 
 "Then why does not William take her?" 
 
 "My! And if she drank porty wine." 
 
 "Doesn't she?" 
 
 "No. But father, he tells her 'bout how the gen- 
 tlemen drinks it." 
 
 I turned from her with relief, but she came after 
 me. 
 
 "Ain't yer going to do it this time?" she de- 
 manded with a falling face. "You done it last time. 
 91 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 I tell her you done it" — she pointed to her friend 
 who was looking wistfully at me — "ain't you to 
 let her see you doing of it?" 
 
 For a moment I thought that her desire was 
 another shiUing, but by a piece of pantomime she 
 showed that she wanted me to lift my hat to her. 
 So I lifted it, and when I looked behind she had 
 her head in the air and her neighbour was gazing 
 at her awestruck. These little creatures are really 
 not without merit. 
 
 About a week afterward I was in a hired landau, 
 holding a newspaper before my face lest anyone 
 should see me in company of a waiter and his wife. 
 William was taking her into Surrey to stay with 
 an old nurse of mine, and Irene was with us, wear- 
 ing the most outrageous bonnet. 
 
 I formed a mean opinion of Mrs. Hicking's in- 
 telligence from her pride in the baby, which was 
 a very ordinary one. She created a regrettable 
 scene when it was brought to her, because "she 
 had been feared it would not know her again." I 
 could have told her that they know no one for years 
 had I not been in terror of Irene, who dandled the 
 92 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 shild on her knees and talked to it all the way. I 
 have never known a bolder little hussy than this 
 Irene. She asked the infant improper questions, 
 such as "Oo know who gave me this bonnet.?" and 
 answered them herself. "It was the pretty gentle- 
 man there," and several times I had to affect sleep, 
 because she announced, "Kiddy wants to kiss the 
 pretty gentleman." 
 
 Irksome as all this necessarily was to a man of 
 taste, I suffered still more acutely when we reached 
 our destination, where disagreeable circumstances 
 compelled me to drink tea with a waiter's family. 
 William knew that I regarded thanks from persons 
 of his class as an outrage, yet he looked them 
 though he dared not speak them. Hardly had he 
 sat down at the table by my orders than he remem- 
 bered that I was a member of the club and jumped 
 up. Nothing is in worse form than whispering, yet 
 again and again he whispered to his poor, foolish 
 wife, "How are you now.'' You don't feel faint?" 
 and when she said she felt like another woman al- 
 ready, his face charged me with the change. I 
 coidd not but conclude from the way she let the 
 93 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 baby pound her that she was stronger than she 
 pretended. 
 
 I remained longer than was necessary because 
 I had something to say to William which I feared 
 he would misunderstand, but when he announced 
 that it was time for him to catch a train back to 
 London, at which his wife paled, I delivered the 
 message. 
 
 "William," I said, backing away from him, "the 
 head-waiter asked me to say that you could take 
 a fortnight's holiday. Your wages will be paid as 
 usual." 
 
 Confound him. 
 
 "William," I cried furiously, "go away." 
 
 Then I saw his wife signing to him, and I knew 
 she wanted to be left alone with me. 
 
 "William," I cried in a panic, "stay where you 
 are." 
 
 But he was gone, and I was alone with a woman 
 whose eyes were filmy. Her class are fond of scenes. 
 "If you please, ma'am!" I said imploringly. 
 
 But she kissed my hand; she was like a little 
 dog. 
 
 94 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 "It can be only the memory of some woman," 
 said she, "that makes you so kind to me and mine." 
 
 Memory was the word she used, as if all my 
 youth were fled. I suppose I really am quite elderly. 
 
 "I should like to know her name, sir," she said, 
 "that I may mention her with loving respect in my 
 prayers." 
 
 I raised the woman and told her the name. It 
 was not Mary. "But she has a home," I said, "as 
 you have, and I have none. Perhaps, ma'am, it 
 would be better worth your while to mention me." 
 
 It was this woman, now in health, whom I in- 
 trusted with the purchase of the outfits, "one for 
 a boy of six months," I explained to her, "and one 
 for a boy of a year," for the painter had boasted 
 to me of David's rapid growth. I think she was 
 a little surprised to find that both outfits were for 
 the same house; and she certainly betrayed an 
 ignoble curiosity about the mother's Christian 
 name, but she was much easier to brow-beat than 
 a fine lady would have been, and I am sure she 
 and her 'daughter enjoyed themselves hugely in the 
 95 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 shops, from one of which I shall never forget Irene 
 emerging proudly with a commissionaire, who con- 
 ducted her under an umbrella to the cab where I 
 was lying in wait. I think that was the most 
 celestial walk of Irene's life. 
 
 I told Mrs. nicking to give the articles a little 
 active ill-treatment that they might not look quite 
 new, at which she exclaimed, not being in my secret, 
 and then to forward them to me. I then sent them 
 to Mary and rejoiced in my devilish cunning all 
 the evening, but chagrin came in the morning with 
 a letter from her which showed she knew all, that 
 I was her Mr. Anon, and that there never had been 
 a Timothy. I think I was never so gravelled. Even 
 now I don't know how she had contrived it. 
 
 Her cleverness raised such a demon in me that 
 I locked away her letter at once and have seldom 
 read it since. No married lady should have indited 
 such an epistle to a single man. It said, with other 
 things which I decline to repeat, that I was her 
 good fairy. As a sample of the deliberate false- 
 hoods in it, I may mention that she said David 
 loved me already. She hoped that I would come 
 96 
 
INCONSIDERATE WAITER 
 
 in often to see her husband, who was very proud 
 of my friendship, and suggested that I should pay 
 him my first visit to-day at three o'clock, an hour 
 at which, as I happened to know, he is always away 
 giving a painting-lesson. In short, she wanted first 
 to meet me alone, so that she might draw the de- 
 licious, respectful romance out of me, and after- 
 ward repeat it to him, with sighs and little peeps 
 at him over her pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 She had dropped what were meant to look like 
 two tears for me upon the paper, but I should not 
 wonder though they were only artful drops of 
 water. 
 
 I sent her a stiff and tart reply, declining to 
 hold any communication with her. 
 
rx 
 
 A CONFIEMED SPINSTEE 
 
 X AM in danger, I see, of being included among 
 the whimsical fellows, which I so little desire that 
 I have got me into my writing-chair to combat the 
 charge, but, having sat for an unconscionable time 
 with pen poised, I am come agitatedly to the fear 
 that there may be something in it. 
 
 So long a time has elapsed, you must know, since 
 I abated of the ardours of self -inquiry that I revert 
 in vain (through many rusty doors) for the be- 
 ginning of this change in me, if changed I am; 
 I seem ever to see this same man until I am back 
 in those wonderful months which were half of my 
 life, when, indeed, I know that I was otherwise than 
 I am now; no whimsical fellow then, for that was 
 one of the possibilities I put to myself while seek- 
 ing for the explanation of things, and found to be 
 inadmissible. Having failed in those days to dis- 
 cover why I was driven from the garden, I suppose 
 98 
 
A CONFIRMED SPINSTER 
 I ceased to be enamoured of myself, as of some 
 dull puzzle, and then perhaps the whimsicalities 
 began to collect unnoticed. 
 
 It is a painful thought to me to-night, that he 
 could wake up glorious once, this man in the el- 
 bow-chair by the fire, who is humorously known at 
 the club as a " confirmed spinster." I remember 
 him well when his years told four and twenty ; on 
 my soul the proudest subaltern of my acquaintance, 
 and with the most reason to be proud. There was 
 nothing he might not do in the future, having 
 already done the biggest thing, this toddler up 
 club-steps to-day. 
 
 Not, indeed, that I am a knave ; I am tolerably 
 kind, I believe, and most inoffensive, a gentleman, 
 I trust, even in the eyes of the ladies who smile at 
 me as we converse; they are an ever-increasing 
 number, or so it seems to me to-night. Ah, ladies, 
 I forget when I first began to notice that smile and 
 to be made uneasy by it. I think I understand it 
 now, and in some vague way it hurts me. I find 
 that I watch for it nowadays, but I hope I am still 
 your loyal, obedient servant. 
 99 
 
T HE L I T T r. 1'^ W II I T K H 1 11 1) 
 
 You will scarcely credit it, but I have just re- 
 membered that I once had a fascinating smile of 
 my own. What has become of my smile? I swear 
 I have not noticed that it was gone till now ; I am 
 like one who revisiting his school feels suddenly 
 for his old knife. I first heard of my smile from 
 another boy, whose sisters had considered all the 
 smiles they knew and placed mine on top. My 
 friend was scornful, and I bribed him to mention 
 the plebiscite to no one, but secretly I was elated 
 and amazed. I feel lost to-night without my smile. 
 I rose a moment ago to look for it in my mirror. 
 
 I like to believe that she has it now. I think she 
 may have some other forgotten trifles of mine with 
 it that make the difference between that man and 
 this. I remember her speaking of my smile, telling 
 me it was my one adornment, and taking it from 
 me, so to speak, for a moment to let me see how 
 she looked in it; she delighted to make sport of 
 me when she was in a wayward mood, and to show 
 me all my ungainly tricks of voice and gesture, 
 exaggerated and glorified in her entrancing self, 
 like a star calling to the earth : " See, I will show 
 100 
 
A CONFIRMED SPINSTER 
 
 you how you hobble round," and always there was 
 a challenge to me in her eyes to stop her if I dared, 
 and upon them, when she was most audacious, lay 
 a sweet mist. 
 
 They all came to her court, as is the business of 
 young fellows, to tell her what love is, and she 
 listened witli a noble frankness, having, indeed, the 
 friendliest face for aU engaged in this pursuit that 
 can ever have sat on woman. I have heard ladies 
 call her coquette, not understanding that she shone 
 softly upon all who entered the lists because, with 
 the rarest intuition, she foresaw that they must go 
 away broken men and already sjinpatlused with 
 their dear wounds. All wounds incurred for love 
 were dear to her ; at every true utterance about love 
 she exulted with grave approval, or it might be 
 with a little "ah!" or "oh!" like one drinking de- 
 liciously. Nothing could have been more fair, for 
 she was for the first comer who could hit the target, 
 which was her heart. 
 
 She adored all beautiful things in their every 
 curve and fragrance, so that they became part of 
 her. Day by day, she gatliered beauty ; had she had 
 101 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 tio heart (she who was the bosom of womanhood) 
 her thoughts would still have been as lilies, because 
 the good is the beautiful. 
 
 And they all forgave her; I never knew of one 
 who did not forgive her; I think had there been 
 one it would have proved that there was a flaw in 
 her. Perhaps, when good-bye came she was weep- 
 ing because all the pretty things were said and 
 done with, or she was making doleful confessions 
 about herself, so impulsive and generous and con- 
 fidential, and so devoid of humour, that they com- 
 pelled even a tragic swain to laugh. She made a 
 looking-glass of his face to seek wofuUy in it 
 whether she was at all to blame, and when his arms 
 went out for her, and she stepped back so that they 
 fell empty, she mourned, with dear sympathy, his 
 lack of skill to seize her. For what her soft eyes 
 said was that she was always waiting tremulously 
 to be won. They all forgave her, because there was 
 nothing to forgive, or very little, just the little 
 that makes a dear girl dearer, and often afterward, 
 I believe, they have laughed fondly when thinking 
 of her, like boys brought back. You ladies who are 
 102 
 
A CONFIRMED SPINSTER 
 
 everything to your husbands save a girl from the 
 dream of youth, have you never known that double- 
 chinned industrious man laugh suddenly in a rev- 
 erie and start up, as if he fancied he were being 
 hailed from far-away? 
 
 I hear her hailing me now. She was so light- 
 hearted that her laugh is what comes first across 
 the years; so high-spirited that she would have 
 wept like Mary of Scots because she could not lie 
 on the bare plains like the men. I hear her, but it 
 is only as an echo; I see her, but it is as a light 
 among distant trees, and the middle-aged man can 
 draw no nearer; she was only for the boys. There 
 was a month when I could have shown her to you 
 in all her bravery, but then the veil fell, and from 
 that moment I understood her not. For long I 
 watched her, but she was never clear to me again, 
 and for long she hovered round me, like a dear 
 heart willing to give me a thousand chances to 
 regain her love. She was so picturesque that she 
 was the last word of art, but she was as young 
 as if she were the first woman. The world must have 
 rung with gallant deeds and grown lovely thoughts 
 103 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 for numberless centuries before she could be; she 
 was the child of all the brave and wistful imagin- 
 ings of men. She was as mysterious as night when 
 it fell for the first time upon the earth. She was 
 the thing we call romance, which lives in the little 
 hut beyond the blue haze of the pine-woods. 
 
 No one could have looked less elfish. She was all 
 on a noble scale, her attributes were so generous, 
 her manner unconquerably gracious, her move- 
 ments indolently active, her face so candid that you 
 must swear her every thought lived always in the 
 open. Yet, with it all, she was a wild thing, alert, 
 suspicious of the lasso, nosing it in every man's 
 hand, more curious about it than about aught else 
 in the world; her quivering dehght was to see It 
 cast for her, her game to elude It; so mettlesome 
 was she that she loved It to be cast fair that she 
 might escape as It was closing round her; she 
 scorned, however her heart might be beating, to 
 run from her pursuers ; she took only the one step 
 backward, which still left her near them but always 
 out of reach; her head on high now, but her face 
 as friendly, her manner as gracious as before, she 
 104 
 
A CONFIRMED SPINSTER 
 
 is yours for the catching. That was ever the 
 unspoken compact between her and the hunts- 
 men. 
 
 It may be but an old trick come back to me with 
 these memories, but again I clasp my hands to my 
 brows in amaze at the thought that all this was for 
 me could I retain her love. For I won it, wonder of 
 the gods, but I won it. I found myself with one 
 foot across the magic circle wherein she moved, 
 and which none but I had entered ; and so, I think, 
 I saw her in revelation, not as the wild thing they 
 had aU conceived her, but as she really was. I saw 
 no tameless creature, nothing wild or strange. I 
 saw my sweet love placid as a young cow browsing. 
 As I brushed aside the haze&and^^iie was truly seen 
 for the first time, she raist|l her head, like one 
 caught, and gazed at me with meek^ffrighted eyes. 
 I told her what had been revealed to me as I looked 
 upon her, and she trembled, knowing she was at 
 last found, and fain would she have fled away, but 
 that her fear was less than her gladness. She came 
 to me slowly ; no incomprehensible thing to me now, 
 but transparent as a pool, and so restful to look 
 105 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 upon that she was a bath to the eyes, like banks 
 of moss. 
 
 Because I knew the maid, she was mine. Every 
 maid, I say, is for him who~~ean know her. The 
 others had but followed the glamour in which she 
 walked, but I had pierced it and found the woman. 
 I could anticipate her every thought and gesture, 
 I could have flashed and rippled and mocked for 
 her, and melted for her and been dear disdain for 
 her. She would forget this and be suddenly con- 
 scious of it as she began to speak, when she gave 
 me a look with a shy smile in it which meant that 
 she knew I was already waiting at the end of what 
 she had to say. I call this the blush of the eye. 
 She had a look and a voice that were for me alone ; 
 her very finger-tips were charged with liaresses for 
 me. And I loved even her naughtinesses, as when 
 she stamped her foot at me, which she could not 
 do without also gnashing her teeth, like a child 
 trying to look fearsome. How pretty was that 
 gnashing of her teeth! All her tormentings of me 
 turned suddenly into sweetnesses, and who could 
 torment like this exquisite fury, wondering in sud- 
 106 
 
A CONFIRMED SPINSTER 
 
 den flame why she could give herself to anyone, 
 while I wondered only why she could give herself 
 to me. It may be that I wondered over-much. Per- 
 haps that was why I lost her. 
 
 It was in the f uU of the moon that she was most 
 restive, but I brought her back, and at first she 
 could have bit m , hand, but then she came will- 
 ingly. Never, I thought, shall she be wholly tamed, 
 but he who knows her will always be able to bring 
 her back. 
 
 I am not that man, for mystery of mysteries, I 
 lost her. I know not how it was, though in the twi- 
 light of my life that then began I groped for 
 reasons until I wearied of myself; all I know is 
 that she had ceased to love me ; I had won her love, 
 but I could not keep it. The discovery came to me 
 slowly, as if I were a most dull-witted man ; at first 
 I knew only that I no longer understood her as 
 of old. I found myself wondering what she had 
 meant by this and that; I did not see that when 
 she began to puzzle me she was already lost to me. 
 It was as if, unknowing, I had strayed outside the 
 magic circle. 
 
 107 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 When I did understand I tried to cheat myself 
 into the belief that there was no change, and the 
 dear heart bleeding for me assisted in that poor 
 pretence. She sought to glide to me with swimming 
 eyes as before, but it showed only that this ca- 
 ressing movement was still within her compass, but 
 never again for me. With the hands she had pressed 
 to her breast she touched mine, but no longer could 
 they convey the message. The current was broken, 
 and soon we had to desist miserably from our pre- 
 tences. She could tell no more than I why she had 
 ceased to love me; she was scarcely less anxious 
 than I that I should make her love me again, and, 
 as I have said, she waited with a wonderful toler- 
 ance while I strove futilely to discover in what I 
 was lacking and to remedy it. And when, at last, 
 she had to leave me, it was with compassionate cries 
 and little backward flights. 
 
 The failure was mine alone, but I think I should 
 not have been so altered by it had I known what 
 was the defect in me through which I let her love 
 escape. This puzzle has done me more harm than 
 the loss of her. Nevertheless, you must know (if I 
 am to speak honestly to you) that I do not repent 
 108 
 
A CONFIRMED SPINSTER 
 
 me those dallyings in enchanted fields. It may not 
 have been so always, for I remember a black night 
 when a poor lieutenant lay down in an earless boat 
 and let It drift toward the weir. But his distant 
 moans do not greatly pain me now; rather am I 
 elated to find (as the waters bring him nearer) that 
 this boy is I, for it is something to know that, once 
 upon a time, a woman could draw blood from me 
 as from another. 
 
 I saw her again, years afterward, when she was 
 a married woman playing with her children. She 
 stamped her foot at a naughty one, and I saw the 
 gleam of her teeth as she gnashed them in the dear 
 pretty way I can't forget ; and then a boy and girl, 
 fighting for her shoulders, brought the whole 
 group joyously to the ground. She picked herself 
 up in the old leisurely manner, lazily active, and 
 looked around her benignantly, like a cow: our 
 dear wild one safely tethered at last with a rope of 
 children. I meant to make her my devoirs, but, as 
 I stepped forward, the old wound broke out afresh, 
 and I had to turn away. They were but a few poor 
 drops, which fell because I found that she was even 
 a little sweeter than I had thought. 
 
 log 
 
SPOKTING EEFLECTIONS 
 
 1 HAVE now told you (I presume) how I became 
 
 whimsical, and I fear it would please Mary not at 
 
 all. But speaking of her, and, as the cat's light 
 
 keeps me in a ruminating mood, suppose, instead 
 
 of returning Mary to her lover by means of the 
 
 letter, I had presented a certain clubman to her 
 
 consideration? Certainly no such whimsical idea 
 
 crossed my mind when I dropped the letter, but 
 
 between you and me and my night-socks, which 
 
 have aU this time been airing by the fire because 
 
 I am subject to cold feet, I have sometimes toyed 
 
 with it since. 
 
 Why did I not think of this in time.'' Was it be- 
 
 f 
 cause I must ever remain true to the unattainable 
 
 she.? 
 
 I am reminded of a passage in the life of a sweet 
 
 lady, a friend of mine, whose daughter was on the 
 
 eve of marriage, when suddenly her lover died. It 
 
 110 
 
SPORTING REFLECTIONS 
 
 then became pitiful to watch that trembling old 
 face trying to point the way of courage to the 
 young one. In time, however, there came another 
 youth, as true, I dare say, as the first, but not so 
 well known to me, and I shrugged my shoulders 
 cynically to see my old friend once more a match- 
 maker. She took him to her heart and boasted of 
 him; like one made young herself by the great 
 event, she joyously dressed her pale daughter in 
 her bridal gown, and, with smiles upon her face, 
 she cast rice after the departing carriage. But soon 
 after it had gone, I chanced upon her in her room, 
 and she was on her knees in tears before the spirit 
 of the dead lover. "Forgive me," she besought him, 
 "for I am old, and life is gray to friendless girls." 
 The pardon she wanted was for pretending to her 
 daughter that women should act thus. 
 
 I am sure she felt herself soiled. 
 
 But men are of a coarser clay. At least I am, and 
 nearly twenty years had elapsed, and here was I 
 burdened under a load of aifection, like a sack of 
 returned love-letters, with no lap into which to 
 dump them. 
 
 Ill 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "They were all written to another woman, 
 ma'am, and yet I am in hopes that you will find 
 something in them about yourself." It would have 
 sounded oddly to Mary, but life is gray to friend- 
 less girls, and something might have come of it. 
 
 On the other hand, it would have brought her 
 for ever out of the wood of the little hut, and I 
 had but to drop the letter to send them both back 
 there. The easiness of it tempted me. 
 
 Besides, she would tire of me when I was really 
 known to her. They all do, you see. 
 
 And, after all, why should he lose his laugh be- 
 cause I had lost my smile? 
 
 And then, again, the whole thing was merely a 
 whimsical idea. 
 
 I dropped the letter, and shouldered my burden. 
 
 n^ 
 
XI 
 
 THE H.UNAWAT PEEAMBTTiATOB, 
 
 I SOMETIMES met David in public places such 
 as the Kensington Gardens, where he lorded it sur- 
 rounded by his suite and wearing the blank face 
 and glass eyes of all carriage-people. On these oc- 
 casions I always stalked by, meditating on higher 
 things, though Mary seemed to think me very hard- 
 hearted, and Irene, who had become his nurse (I 
 forget how, but fear I had something to do with 
 it), ran after me with messages, as, would I not 
 call and see him in his home at twelve o'clock, at 
 which moment, it seemed, he was at his best. 
 
 No, I would not. 
 
 "He says tick-tack to the clock," Irene said, try- 
 ing to snare me. 
 
 "Pooh!" said I. 
 
 "Other little 'uns jest says 'tick-tick,'" she told 
 me, with a flush of pride, 
 
 "I prefer 'tick-tick,'" I said, whereq.t she de- 
 parted in dudgeon. 
 
 US 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Had they had the sense to wheel him behind a 
 tree and leave him, I would have looked, but as they 
 lacked it, I decided to wait until he could walk, 
 when it would be more easy to waylay him. How- 
 ever, he was a cautious little gorbal who, after 
 many threats to rise, always seemed to come to the 
 conclusion that he might do worse than remain 
 where he was, and when he had completed his first 
 year I lost patience with him. 
 
 "When I was his age," I said to Irene, "I was 
 running about." I consulted them casually about 
 this matter at the club, and they had aU been run- 
 ning about at a year old. 
 
 I made this nurse the following offer: If she 
 would bring the dilatory boy to my rooms and 
 leave him there for half an hour I would look at 
 him. At first Mary, to whom the offer was passed 
 on, rejected it with hauteur, but presently she wav- 
 ered, and the upshot was that Irene, looking scorn- 
 ful and anxious, arrived one day with the peram- 
 bulator. Without casting eyes on its occupant, I 
 pointed Irene to the door: "In half-an-hour," I 
 said. 
 
 11^ 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 She begged permission to remain, and promised 
 to turn her back, and so on, but I was obdurate, 
 and she then delivered herself of a passionately 
 affectionate farewell to her charge, which was 
 really all directed against me, and ended with these 
 powerful words : "And if he takes off your socks, 
 my pretty, may he be blasted for evermore." 
 
 "I shall probably take off her socks," I said care- 
 lessly to this. 
 
 Her socks. Do you see what made Irene 
 scream ? 
 
 "It is a girl, is it not.?" I asked, thus neatly de- 
 priving her of coherent speech as I pushed her to 
 the door. I then turned round to — to begin, and, 
 after reflecting, I began by sitting down behind 
 the hood of his carriage. My plan was to accustom 
 him to his new surroundings before bursting on 
 the scene myself. 
 
 I had various thoughts. Was he awake.? If not, 
 better let him wake naturally. Half-an-hour was 
 a long time. Why had I not said quarter-of-an- 
 hour.? Anon, I saw that if I was to sit there much 
 longer I should have said an hour, so I whistled 
 115 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 softly; but he took no notice. I remember trying 
 to persuade myself that if I never budged till 
 Irene's return, it would be an amusing triumph 
 over Mary. I coughed, but still there was no re- 
 sponse. Abruptly, the fear smote me. Perhaps he 
 is not there. 
 
 I rose hastily, and was striding forward, when 
 I distinctly noticed a covert movement somewhere 
 near the middle of the carriage, and heard a low 
 gurgle, which was instantly suppressed. I stopped 
 dead at this sharp reminder that I was probably 
 not the only curious person in the room, and for 
 a long moment we both lay low, after which, I am 
 glad to remember, I made the first advance. Earlier 
 in the day I had arranged some likely articles on a 
 side-table : my watch and chain, my bunch of keys, 
 and two war-medals for plodding merit, and with 
 a glance at these (as something to fall back upon), 
 I stepped forward doggedly, looking (I fear now) 
 a little like a professor of legerdemain. David was 
 sitting up, and he immediately fixed his eyes on me. 
 
 It would iU become me to attempt to describe 
 this dear boy to you, for of course I know really 
 116 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 nothing about children, so I shall say only this, 
 that I thought him very Hke what Timothy would 
 have been had he ever had a chance. 
 
 I to whom David had been brought for judg- 
 ment, now found myself being judged by him, and 
 this rearrangement of the pieces seemed so natural 
 that I felt no surprise ; I felt only a humble crav- 
 ing to hear him signify that I would do. I have 
 stood up before other keen judges and deceived 
 them all, but I made no effort to deceive David; 
 I wanted to, but dared not. Those unblinking eyes 
 were too new to the world to be hooded by any of 
 its tricks. In them I saw my true self. They opened 
 for me that pedler's pack of which I have made so 
 much ado, and I found that it was weighted less 
 with pretty little sad love-tokens than with ignoble 
 thoughts and deeds and an unguided life. I looked 
 dejectedly at David, not so much, I think, because 
 I had such a sorry display for him, as because I 
 feared he would not have me in his service. I seemed 
 to know that he was making up his mind once and 
 for all. 
 
 And in the end he smiled, perhaps only because 
 117 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 I looked so frightened, but the reason scarcely mat- 
 tered to me, I felt myself a fine fellow at once. It 
 was a long smile, too, opening slowly to its fullest 
 extent (as if to let me in), and then as slowly 
 shutting. 
 
 Then, to divert me from sad thoughts, or to 
 rivet our friendship, or because the time had come 
 for each of us to show the other what he could 
 do, he immediately held one foot high in the air. 
 This made him slide down the perambulator, and I 
 saw at once that it was very necessary to replace 
 him. But never before had I come into such close 
 contact with a child ; the most I had ever done was, 
 when they were held up to me, to shut my eyes 
 and kiss a vacuum. David, of course, though no 
 doubt he was eternally being replaced, could tell 
 as little as myself how it was contrived, and yet 
 we managed it between us quite easily. His body 
 instinctively assumed a certain position as I touched 
 him, which compelled my arms to fall into place, 
 and the thing was done. I felt absurdly pleased, 
 but he was already considering what he should do 
 next. 
 
 118 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 He again held up his foot, which had a gouty- 
 appearance owing to its being contained in a 
 dumpy little worsted sock, and I thought he pro- 
 posed to repeat his first performance, but in this 
 I did him an injustice, for, unlike Porthos, he was 
 one who scorned to do the same feat twice; per- 
 haps, like the conjurors, he knew that the audience 
 were more on the alert the second time. 
 
 I discovered that he wanted me to take off his 
 sock! 
 
 Remembering Irene's dread warnings on this 
 subject I must say that I felt uneasy. Had he heard 
 her, and was he daring me? And what dire thing 
 could happen if the sock was removed? I sought 
 to reason with him, but he signed to me to look 
 sharp, and I removed the sock. The part of him 
 thus revealed gave David considerable pleasure, but 
 I noticed, as a curious thing, that he seemed to 
 have no interest in the other foot. 
 
 However, it was not there merely to be looked 
 
 at, for after giving me a glance which said " Now 
 
 observe ! " he raised his bare foot and ran his mouth 
 
 along the toes, like one playing on a barbaric in- 
 
 119 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 strument. He then tossed his foot aside, smiled his 
 long triumphant smile and intimated that it was 
 now my turn to do something, I thought the best 
 thing I could do would be to put his sock on him 
 again, but as soon as I tried to do so I discovered 
 why Irene had warned me so portentously against 
 taking it off. I should say that she had trouble in 
 socking him every morning. 
 
 Nevertheless I managed to slip it on while he 
 was debating what to do with my watch. I bitterly 
 regretted that I could do nothing with it myself, 
 put it under a wine-glass, for instance, and make 
 it turn into a rabbit, which so many people can do. 
 In the meantime David, occupied with similar 
 thoughts, very nearly made it disappear alto- 
 gether, and I was thankful to be able to pull it 
 back by the chain. 
 
 "Haw-haw-Aaw .' " 
 
 Thus he commented on his new feat, but it was 
 also a reminder to me, a trifle cruel, that he was 
 not my boy. After all, you see, Mary had not given 
 him the whole of his laugh. The watch said that 
 five and twenty minutes had passed, and looking 
 ISO 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 out I saw Irene at one end of the street staring 
 up at my window, and at the other end Mary's 
 husband staring up at my window, and beneath 
 me Mary staring up at my window. They had all 
 broken their promise. 
 
 I returned to David, and asked him in a low 
 voice whether he would give me a kiss. He shook 
 his head about six times, and I was in despair. 
 Then the smile came, and I knew that he was teas- 
 ing me only. He now nodded his head about six 
 times. 
 
 This was the prettiest of all his exploits. It was 
 so pretty that, contrary to his rule, he repeated 
 it. I had held out my arms to him, and first he 
 shook his head, and then after a long pause (to 
 frighten me), he nodded it. 
 
 But no sooner was he in my arms than I seemed 
 to see Mary and her husband and Irene bearing 
 down upon my chambers to take him from me, and 
 acting under an impulse I whipped him into the 
 perambulator and was oflF with it without a license 
 down the back staircase. To the Kensington Gar- 
 dens we went; it may have beeen Manitoba we 
 121 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 started for, but we arrived at the Kensington Gar- 
 dens, and it had all been so unpremeditated and 
 smartly carried out that I remember clapping my 
 hand to my head in the street, to make sure that 
 I was wearing a hat. 
 
 I watched David to see what he thought of it, 
 and he had not yet made up his mind. Strange to 
 say, I no longer felt shy. I was grown suddenly 
 indiflFerent to public comment, and my elation in- 
 creased when I discovered that I was being pur- 
 sued. They drew a cordon round me near Margot 
 Meredith's tree, but I broke through it by a 
 strategic movement to the south, and was next 
 heard of in the Baby's Walk. They held both ends 
 of this passage, and then thought to close on me, 
 but I sHpped through their fingers by doubling up 
 Bunting's Thumb into Picnic Street. Cowering at 
 St. Govor's Well, we saw them rush distractedly 
 up the Hump, and when they had crossed to the 
 Round Pond we paraded gaily in the Broad Walk, 
 not feeling the tiniest bit sorry for anybody. 
 
 Here, however, it gradually came into David's 
 eyes that, after all, I was a strange man, and they 
 12Z 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 opened wider and wider, until they were the size 
 of my medals, and then, with the deliberation that 
 distinguishes his smile, he slowly prepared to howl. 
 I saw all his forces gathering in his face, and I 
 had nothing to oppose to them ; it was an unarmed 
 man against a regiment. 
 
 Even then I did not chide him. He could not 
 know that it was I who had dropped the letter. 
 
 I think I must have stepped over a grateful fairy 
 at that moment, for who else could have reminded 
 me so opportunely of my famous manipulation of 
 the eyebrows, forgotten since I was in the fifth 
 form? I alone of boys had been able to elevate 
 and lower my eyebrows separately ; when the one 
 was chmbing my forehead the other descended it, 
 like the two buckets in the well. 
 
 Most diffidently did I call this accomplishment 
 to my aid now, and immediately David checked his 
 forces and considered my unexpected movement 
 without prejudice. His face remained as it was, his 
 mouth open to emit the howl if I did not surpass 
 expectation. I saw that, like the fair-minded boy 
 he has always been, he was giving me my chance, 
 123 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 and I worked feverishly, my chief fear being that, 
 owing to his youth, he might not know how mar^ 
 vellous was this thing I was doing. It is an appeal 
 to the intellect, as well as to the senses, and no one 
 on earth can do it except myself. 
 
 When I paused for a moment exhausted he 
 signed gravely, with unchanged face, that though 
 it was undeniably funny, he had not yet decided 
 whether it was funny enough, and, taking this for 
 encouragement, at it I went once more, till I saw 
 his forces wavering, when I sent my left eyebrow 
 up almost farther than I could bring it back, and 
 with that I had him, the smile broke through the 
 clouds. 
 
 In the midst of my hard-won triumph I heard 
 cheering. 
 
 I had been vaguely conscious that we were not 
 quite alone, but had not dared to look away from 
 David; I looked now, and found to my annoyance 
 that I was the centre of a deeply interested gather^ 
 ing of children. There was, in particular, one vul^ 
 gar little street-boy 
 
 Jlowevej", if tljat damped me in the moment of 
 ISA 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 victory, I was soon to triumph gloriously in what 
 began like defeat. I had sat me down on one of the 
 garden-seats in the Figs, with one hand resting 
 carelessly on the perambulator, in imitation of the 
 nurses, it was so pleasant to assume the air of one 
 who walked with David daily, when to my chagrin 
 I saw Mary approaching with quick stealthy steps, 
 and already so near me that flight would have 
 been ignominy. Porthos, of whom she had hold, 
 bounded toward me, waving his traitorous tail, but 
 she slowed on seeing that I had observed her. She 
 had run me down with my own dog. 
 
 I have not mentioned that Porthos had for some 
 time now been a visitor at her house, though never 
 can I forget the shock I got the first time I saw 
 him strolling out of it like an afternoon caller. Of 
 late he has avoided it, crossing to the other side 
 when I go that way, and rejoining me farther on, 
 so I conclude that Mary's husband is painting him. 
 
 I waited her coming stiffly, in great depression of 
 spirits, and noted that her first attentions were for 
 David, who, somewhat shabbily, gave her the end 
 of a sipil'e which had been begun for me. It spemed 
 
 m 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 to relieve her, for what one may call the wild 
 maternal look left her face, and trying to check 
 little gasps of breath, the result of unseemly run- 
 ning, she signed to her confederates to remain in 
 the background, and turned curious eyes on me. 
 Had she spoken as she approached, I am sure her 
 words would have been as flushed as her face, but 
 now her mouth puckered as David's does before he 
 sets forth upon his smile, and I saw that she 
 thought she had me in a parley at last. 
 
 "I could not help being a little anxious," she 
 said craftily, but I must own, with some sweetness. 
 
 I merely raised my hat, and at that she turned 
 quickly to David — I cannot understand why the 
 movement was so hasty- — and lowered her face to 
 his. Oh, little trump of a boy! Instead of kissing 
 her, he seized her face with one hand and tried to 
 work her eyebro\^s up and down with the other. 
 He failed, and his obvious disappointment in his 
 mother was as nectar to me. 
 
 "I don't understand what you want, darling," 
 said she in distress, and looked at me inquiringly, 
 £ind I understood what he wanted, and let her see 
 126 
 
THE RUNAWAY PERAMBULATOR 
 
 that I understood. Had I been prepared to con- 
 verse with her, I should have said elatedly that, 
 had she known what he wanted, still she could not 
 have done it, though she had practised for twenty 
 years. 
 
 I tried to express aU this by another movement 
 of my hat. 
 
 It caught David's eye and at once he appealed 
 to me with the most perfect confidence. She failed 
 to see what I did, for I shyly gave her my back, 
 but the effect on David was miraculous ; he signed 
 to her to go, for he was engaged for the afternoon. 
 
 What would you have done then, reader? I 
 didn't. In my great moment I had strength of char- 
 acter to raise my hat for the third time and walk 
 away, leaving the child to judge between us. I 
 walked slowly, for I knew I must give him time to 
 get it out, and I listened eagerly, but that was un- 
 necessary, for when it did come it was a very roar 
 of anguish. I turned my head, and saw David 
 fiercely pushing the woman aside, that he might 
 have one last long look at me. He held out his wist- 
 ful arms and nodded repeatedly, and I faltered, 
 127 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 but my glorious scheme saved me, and I walked on. 
 It was a scheme conceived in a flash, and ever since 
 relentlessly pursued, to burrow under Mary's in- 
 fluence with the boy, expose her to him in all her 
 vagaries, take him utterly from her and make him 
 
 138 
 
xn 
 
 THE PLEASANTEST CLUB IN LONDON 
 
 i\.LL perambulators lead to the Kensington 
 Gardens. 
 
 Not, however, that you will see David in his 
 perambulator much longer, for soon after I first 
 shook his faith in his mother, it came to him to be 
 up and doing, and he up and did in the Broad 
 Walk itself, where he would stand alone most elab- 
 orately poised, signing imperiously to the British 
 public to time him, and looking his most heavenly 
 just before he fell. He fell with a dump, and as 
 they always laughed then, he pretended that this 
 was his funny way of finishing. 
 
 That was on a Monday. On Tuesday he climbed 
 the stone stair of the Gold King, looking over his 
 shoulder gloriously at each step, and on Wednes- 
 day he struck three and went into knickerbockers. 
 For the Kensington Gardens, you must know, are 
 full of short cuts, familiar to all who play there; 
 129 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 and the shortest leads from the baby in long clothes 
 to the little boy of three riding on the fence. It is 
 called the Mother's Tragedy. 
 
 If you are a burgess of the gardens (which have 
 a vocabulary of their own), the faces of these 
 quaint mothers are a clock to you, in which you 
 may read the ages of their young. When he is three 
 they are said to wear the knickerbocker face, and 
 you may take it from me that Mary assumed that 
 face with a sigh; fain would she have kept her 
 boy a baby longer, but he insisted on his rights, 
 and I encouraged him that I might notch another 
 point against her. I was now seeing David once at 
 least every week, his mother, who remained cul- 
 pably obtuse to my sinister design, having in- 
 structed Irene that I was to be allowed to share 
 him with her, and we had become close friends, 
 though the little nurse was ever a threatening shad- 
 ow in the background. Irene, in short, did not im- 
 prove with acquaintance. I found her to be high 
 and mighty, chiefly, I think, because she now wore 
 a nurse's cap with streamers, of which the little 
 creature was ludicrously proud. She assumed the 
 130 
 
THE PLEASANTEST CLUB 
 
 airs of an official person, and always talked as if 
 generations of babies had passed through her 
 hands. She was also extremely jealous, and had a 
 way of signifying disapproval of my methods that 
 led to many coldnesses and even bickerings between 
 us, which I now see to have been undignified. I 
 brought the following accusations against her: 
 
 That she prated too much about right and 
 wrong. 
 
 That she was a martinet. 
 
 That she pretended it was a real cap, with real 
 streamers, when she knew Mary had made the whole 
 thing out of a muslin blind. I regret having used 
 this argument, but it was the only one that really 
 damped her. 
 
 On the other hand, she accused me of spoiling 
 him. 
 
 Of not thinking of his future. 
 
 Of never asking him where he expected to go to 
 if he did such things. 
 
 Of telling him tales that had no moral applica- 
 tion. 
 
 Of saying that the handkerchief disappeared 
 13X 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 into nothingness, when it really disappeared into 
 a small tin cup, attached to my person by a piece 
 of elastic. 
 
 To this last charge I plead guilty, for in those 
 days I had a pathetic faith in legerdemain, and the 
 eyebrow feat (which, however, is entirely an affair 
 of skill) having yielded such good results, I natu- 
 rally cast about for similar diversions when it 
 ceased to attract. It lost its hold on David sudden- 
 ly, as I was to discover was the fate of all of them ; 
 twenty times would he call for my latest, and 
 exult in it, and the twenty-first time (and 
 ever afterward) he would stare blankly, as if 
 wondering what the man meant. He was like the 
 child queen who, when the great joke was explained 
 to her, said coldly, "We are not amused," and, I 
 assure you, it is a humiliating thing to perform 
 before an infant who intimates, after giving you 
 ample time to make your points, that he is not 
 amused. I hoped that when David was able to talk 
 — and not merely to stare at me for five minutes 
 and then say "hat" — ^his spoken verdict, however 
 damning, would be less expressive than his verdict 
 132 
 
THE PLEASANTEST CLUB 
 
 without words, but I was disillusioned. I remember 
 once in those later years, when he could keep up 
 such spirited conversations with himself that he 
 had little need for any of us, promising him to do 
 something exceedingly funny with a box and two 
 marbles, and after he had watched for a long time 
 he said gravely, "Tell me when it begins to be 
 funny." 
 
 I confess to having received a few simple lessons 
 in conjuring, in a dimly lighted chamber beneath 
 a shop, from a gifted young man with a long neck 
 and a pimply face, who as I entered took a barber's 
 pole from my pocket, saying at the same time, 
 "Come, come, sir, this will never do." Whether be- 
 cause he knew too much, or because he wore a trick 
 shirt, he was the most depressing person I ever en- 
 countered; he felt none of the artist's joy, and it 
 was sad to see one so well calculated to give pleas- 
 ure to thousands not caring a dump about it. 
 
 The barber's pole I successfully extracted from 
 
 David's mouth, but the difficulty (not foreseen) 
 
 of knowing how to dispose of a barber's pole in 
 
 the Kensington Gardens is considerable, there al- 
 
 133 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 ways being polite children hovering near who run 
 after you and restore it to you. The young man, 
 again, had said that anyone would lend me a bottle 
 or a lemon, but though these were articles on which 
 he seemed ever able to lay his hand, I found (what 
 I had never noticed before) that there is a curious 
 dearth of them in the Gardens. The magic egg- 
 cup I usually carried about with me, and with its 
 connivance I did some astonishing things with 
 pennies, but even the penny that costs sixpence is 
 uncertain, and just when you are saying trium- 
 phantly that it win be found in the egg-cup, it may 
 clatter to the ground, whereon some ungenerous 
 spectator, such as Irene, accuses you of fibbing and 
 corrupting youthful minds. It was useless to tell 
 her, through clenched teeth, that the whole thing 
 was a joke, for she understood no jokes except 
 her own, of which she had the most immoderately 
 high opinion, and that would have mattered little 
 to me had not David liked them also. There were 
 times when I could not but think less of the boy, 
 seeing him rock convulsed over antics of Irene that 
 . have been known to every nursemaid since the year 
 134> 
 
THEPLEASANTEST CLUB 
 
 One. While I stood by, sneering, he would give me 
 the ecstatic look that meant, "Irene is reaUy very 
 entertaining, isn't she?" 
 
 We were rivals, but I desire to treat her with 
 scrupulous fairness, and I admit that she had one 
 good thing, to wit, her gutta-percha tooth. In 
 earlier days one of her front teeth, as she told me, 
 had fallen out, but instead of then parting with it, 
 the resourceful child had hammered it in again 
 with a hair-brush, which she offered to show me, 
 with the dents on it. This tooth, having in time 
 passed away, its place was supplied by one of 
 gutta-percha, made by herself, which seldom came 
 out except when she sneezed, and if it merely fell 
 at her feet this was a sign that the cold was to be 
 a slight one, but if it shot across the room she 
 knew she was in for something notable. Irene's 
 tooth was very favourably known in the Gardens, 
 where the perambulators used to gather round her 
 to hear whether it had been doing anything to- 
 day, and I would not have grudged David his pro- 
 prietary pride in it, had he seemed to understand 
 that Irene's one poor little accomplishment, though 
 135 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 undeniably showy, was without intellectual merit. 
 I have sometimes stalked away from him, intimat- 
 ing that if his regard was to be got so cheaply 
 I begged to retire from the competition, but the 
 Gardens are the pleasantest club in London, and I 
 soon returned. How I scoured the Gardens looking 
 for him, and how skilful I became at picking him 
 out far away among the trees, though other 
 mothers imitated the picturesque attire of him, to 
 Mary's indignation. I also cut Irene's wings (so 
 to speak) by taking her to a dentist. 
 
 And David did some adorable things. For in- 
 stance, he used my pockets as receptacles into which 
 he put any article he might not happen to want 
 at the moment. He shoved it in, quite as if they were 
 his own pockets, without saying. By your leave, 
 and perhaps I discovered it on reaching home — a 
 tin-soldier, or a pistol — ^when I put it on my man- 
 tleshelf and sighed. And here is another pleasant 
 memory. One day I had been over-friendly to an- 
 other boy, and, after enduring it for some time 
 David up and struck him. It was exactly as Porthos 
 does, when I favour other dogs (he knocks them 
 136 
 
THE PLEASANTEST CLUB 
 
 down with his foot and stands over them, looking 
 very noble and stern), so I knew its meaning at 
 once ; it was David's first public intimation that he 
 knew I belonged to him. 
 
 Irene scolded him for striking that boy, and 
 made him stand in disgrace at the corner of a seat 
 in the Broad Walk. The seat at the comer of which 
 David stood suffering for love of me, is the one 
 nearest to the Round Pond to persons coming from 
 the north. 
 
 You may be sure that she. and I had words over 
 this fiendish cruelty. When next we met I treated 
 her as one who no longer existed, and at first she 
 bridled and then was depressed, and as I was going 
 away she burst into tears. She cried because neither 
 at meeting nor parting had I lifted my hat to her, 
 a foolish custom of mine, of which, as I now learned 
 to my surprise, she was very proud. She and I still 
 have our tiffs, but I have never since then forgotten 
 to lift my hat to Irene. I also made her promise to 
 bow to me, at which she affected to scoff, saying I 
 was taking my fun of her, but she was really 
 pleased, and I tell you, Irene has one of the prettiest 
 137 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 and most touching little bows imaginable ; it is half 
 to the side (if I may so express myself), which has 
 always been my favourite bow, and, I doubt not, 
 she acquired it by watching Mary. 
 
 I should be sorry to have it thought, as you may 
 now be thinking, that I look on children as on 
 puppy-dogs, who care only for play. Perhaps that 
 was my idea when first I tried to lure David to my 
 unaccustomed arms, and even for some time after, 
 for if I am to be candid, I must own that until he 
 was three years old I sought merely to amuse him. 
 God forgive me, but I had only one day a week 
 in which to capture him, and I was very raw at the 
 business. 
 
 I was about to say that David opened my eyes 
 to the folly of it, but really I think this was Irene's 
 doing. Watching her with children I learned that 
 partial as they are to fun they are moved almost 
 more profoundly by moral excellence. So fond of 
 babes was this httle mother that she had always 
 room near her for one more, and often have I seen 
 her in the Gardens, the centre of a dozen mites who 
 gazed awestruck at her while she told them severely 
 138 
 
THE PLEASANTEST CLUB 
 
 how little ladies and gentlemen behave. They were 
 children of the well-to-pass, and she was from 
 Drury Lane, but they beUeved in her as the greatest 
 of all authorities on little ladies and gentlemen, 
 and the more they heard of how these romantic 
 creatures keep themselves tidy and avoid pools and 
 wait tiU they come to a gate, the more they admired 
 them, though their faces showed how profoundly 
 they felt that to be little ladies and gentlemen was 
 not for them. You can't think what hopeless little 
 faces they were. 
 
 Children are not at all like puppies, I have said. 
 But do puppies care only for play? That wistful 
 look, which the merriest of them sometimes wear, 
 I wonder whether it means that they would like to 
 hear about the good puppies .'' 
 
 As you shall see, I invented many stories for 
 David, practising the telling of them by my fireside 
 as if they were conjuring feats, while Irene knew 
 only one, but she told it as never has any other 
 fairy-tale been told in my hearing. It was the 
 prettiest of them all, and was recited by the j 
 heroine. i 
 
 139 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "Why were the king and queen not at home?" 
 David would ask her breathlessly. 
 
 "I suppose," said Irene, thinking it out, "they 
 was away buying the victuals." 
 
 She always told the story gazing into vacancy, 
 so that David thought it was really happening 
 somewhere up the Broad Walk, and when she came 
 to its great moments her little bosom heaved. Never 
 shall I forget the concentrated scorn with which 
 the prince said to the sisters, "Neither of you ain't 
 the one what wore the glass slipper." 
 
 "And then — and then — and then — ," said Irene, 
 not artistically to increase the suspense, but because 
 it was all so glorious to her. 
 
 "Tell me — tell me quick," cried David, though 
 he knew the tale by heart. 
 
 "She sits down like," said Irene, trembling in 
 second-sight, "and she tries on the glass slipper, 
 and it fits her to a T, and then the prince, he cries 
 in a ringing voice, 'This here is my true love, Cin- 
 derella, what now I makes my lawful wedded 
 wife.' " 
 
 Then she would come out of her dream, and look 
 140 
 
THE PLEASANTEST CLUB 
 
 round at the grandees of the Gardens with an ex- 
 traordinary elation. "Her, as was only a kitchen 
 drudge," she would say in a strange soft voice and 
 with shining eyes, "but was true and faithful in 
 word and deed, such was her reward." 
 
 I am sure that had the fairy godmother appeared 
 just then and touched Irene with her wand, David 
 would have been interested rather than astonished. 
 As for myself, I believe I have sui^prised this little 
 girl's secret. She knows there are no fairy god- 
 mothers nowadays, but she hopes that if she is al- 
 ways true and faithful she may some day turn into 
 a lady in word and deed, like the mistress whom 
 she adores. 
 
 It is a dead secret, a Drury Lane child's ro- 
 mance ; but what an amount of heavy artillery will 
 be brought to bear against it in this sad London 
 of ours. Not much daance for her, I suppose. 
 
 Grood luck to you, Irene. 
 
 141 
 
XIII 
 
 THE GRAND TOUR OB' THE GARDENS 
 
 JL OU must see for yourselves that it will be diffi- 
 cult to follow our adventures unless you are famil- 
 iar with the Kensington Gardens, as they now be- 
 came known to David. They are in London, where 
 the King lives, and you go to them every day unless 
 you are looking decidedly flushed, but no one has 
 ever been in the whole of the Gardens, because it 
 is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon 
 time to turn back is that you sleep from twelve to 
 one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep 
 from twelve to one, you could most likely see the 
 whole of them. 
 
 The Gardens are bounded on one side by a never- 
 ending line of omnibuses, over which Irene has such 
 authority that if she holds up her finger to any 
 one of them it stops immediately. She then crosses 
 with you in safety to the other side. There are 
 14,3 
 
TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 more gates to the Gardens than one gate, but that 
 is the one you go in at, and before you go in you 
 speak to the lady with the balloons, who sits just 
 outside. This is as near to being inside as she may 
 venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of 
 the railings for one moment, the balloons would 
 lift her up, and she would be flown away. She sits 
 very squat, for the balloons are always tugging at 
 her, and the strain has given her quite a red face. 
 Once she was a new one, because the old one had 
 let go, and David was very sorry for the old 
 one, but as she did let go, he wished he had been 
 there to see. 
 
 The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with 
 millions and hundreds of trees, and first you come 
 to the Figs, but you scorn to loiter there, for the 
 Figs is the resort of superior little persons, who are 
 forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is so 
 named, according to legend, because they dress in 
 full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contempt- 
 uously called Figs by David and other heroes, and 
 ypvi have a key tp. the manners and customs of this 
 dandiacal section of the Gardens when I tell you 
 US 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 that cricket is called crickets here. Occasionally a 
 rehel Fig climbs over the fence into the world, and 
 such a one was Miss Mabel Grey, of whom I shall 
 tell you when we come to Miss Mabel Grey's gate. 
 She was the only really celebrated Fig. 
 
 We are now in the Broad Walk, and it is as much 
 bigger than the other walks as your father is 
 bigger than you. David wondered if it began little, 
 and grew and grew, till it was quite grown up, and 
 whether the other walks are its babies, and he drew 
 a picture, which diverted him very much, of the 
 Broad Walk giving a tiny walk an airing in a 
 perambulator. In the Broad Walk you meet all the 
 people who are worth knowing, and there is usually 
 a grown-up with them to prevent their going on 
 the damp grass, and to make them stand disgraced 
 at the corner of a seat if they have been mad-dog 
 or Mary-Annish. To be Mary-Annish is to behave 
 like a girl, whimpering because nurse won't carry 
 you, or simpering with your thumb in your mouth, 
 and it is a hateful quality, but to be mad-dog is 
 to kick out at everything, and there is some satis- -^ 
 faction in that. 
 
 144 
 
TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 If I were to point out all the notable places as 
 we pass up the Broad Walk, it would be time to 
 turn back before we reach them, and I simply wave 
 my stick at Cecco's Tree, that memorable spot 
 where a boy called Cecco lost his penny, and, look- 
 ing for It, found twopence. There has been a good 
 deal of excavation going on there ever since. Far- 
 ther up the walk Is the little wooden house In which 
 Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful 
 story of the Gardens by day than this of Marma- 
 duke Perry, who had been Mary-Annlsh three days 
 In succession, and was sentenced to appear in the 
 Broad Walk dressed in his sister's clothes. He hid 
 In the little wooden house, and refused to emerge 
 until they brought him knickerbockers with 
 pockets. 
 
 You now try to go to the Round Pond, but 
 nurses hate it, because they are not really manly, 
 and they make you look the other way, at the Big 
 Penny and the Baby's Palace. She was the most 
 celebrated baby of the Gardens, and lived In the 
 palace all alone, with ever so many dolls, so people 
 rang the bell, and up she got out of her bed, 
 145 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 though it was past six o'clock, and she lighted a 
 candle and opened the door in her nighty, and 
 then they all cried with great rejoicings, "Hail, 
 Queen of England!" What puzzled David most 
 was how she knew where the matches were kept. 
 The Big Penny is a statue about her. 
 
 Next we come to the Hump, which is the part 
 of the Broad Walk where all the big races are run, 
 and even though you had no intention of running 
 you do run when you come to the Hump, it is such 
 a fascinating, slide-down kind of place. Often you 
 stop when you have run about half-way down it, 
 and then you are lost, but there is another little 
 wooden house near here, called the Lost House, 
 and so you tell the man that you are lost and then 
 he finds you. It is glorious fun racing down the 
 Hump, but you can't do it on windy days because 
 then you are not there, but the fallen leaves do it 
 instead of you. There is almost nothing that has 
 such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf. 
 
 From the Hump we can see the gate that is called 
 after Miss Mabel Grey, the Fig I promised to tell 
 you about. There were always two nurses with her, 
 146 
 
TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 or else one mother and one nurse, and for a long 
 time she was a pattern-child who always coughed 
 off the table and said, "How do you do?" to the 
 other Figs, and the only game she played at was 
 flinging a ball gracefully and letting the nurse 
 bring it back to her. Then one day she tired of it 
 all and went mad-dog, and, first, to show that she 
 really was mad-dog, she unloosened both her boot- 
 laces and put out her tongue east, west, north, and 
 south. She then flung her sash into a puddle and 
 danced on it till dirty water was squirted over her 
 frock, after which she climbed the fence and had a 
 series of incredible adventures, one of the least of 
 which was that she kicked off both her boots. At last 
 she came to the gate that is now called after her, out 
 of which she ran into streets DaAad and I have 
 never been in though we have heard them roaring, 
 and still she ran on and would never again have 
 been heard of had not her mother jumped into a 
 bus and thus overtaken her. It all happened, I 
 should say, long ago, and this is not the Mabel 
 Grey whom David knows. 
 
 Returaing up the Broad Walk we have on our 
 147 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 right the Baby Walk, which is so full of peram- 
 bulators that you could cross from side to side 
 stepping on babies, but the nurses won't let you do 
 it. From this walk a passage called Bunting's 
 Thumb, because it is that length, leads into Picnic 
 Street, where there are real kettles, and chestnut- 
 blossom falls into your mug as you are drinking. 
 Quite common children picnic here also, and the 
 blossom falls into their mugs just the same. 
 
 Next comes St. Govor's Well, which was full 
 of water when Malcolm the Bold fell into it. He 
 was his mother's favourite, and he let her put her 
 arm round his neck in public because she was a 
 widow, but he was also partial to adventures and 
 liked to play with a chimney-sweep who had killed 
 a good many bears. The sweep's name was Sooty, 
 and one day when they were playing near the well, 
 Malcolm fell in and would have been drowned had 
 not Sooty dived in and rescued him, and the water 
 had washed Sooty clean and he now stood revealed 
 as Malcolm's long-lost father. So Malcolm would 
 not let his mother put her arm round his neck any 
 more. 
 
 148 
 
TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 Between the well and the Round Pond are the 
 cricket-pitches, and frequently the choosing of 
 sides exhausts so much time that there is scarcely 
 any cricket. Everybody wants to bat first, and as 
 soon as he is out he bowls unless you are the better 
 wrestler, and while you are wrestling with him the 
 fielders have scattered to play at something else. 
 The Gardens are noted for two kinds of cricket: 
 boy cricket, which is real cricket with a bat, and 
 girl cricket, which is with a racquet and the gov- 
 erness. Girls can't really play cricket, and when 
 you are watching their futile efforts you make 
 funny sounds at them. Nevertheless, there was a 
 very disagreeable incident one day when some for- 
 ward girls challenged David's team, and a disturb- 
 ing creature called Angela Clare sent down so many 
 yorkers that — However, instead of telling you the 
 result of that regrettable match I shall pass on 
 hurriedly to the Round Pond, which is the wheel 
 that keeps all the Gardens going. 
 
 It is round because it is in the very middle of 
 the Gardens, and when you are come to it you never 
 want to go any farther. You can't be good all the 
 149 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 time at the Round Pond, however much you try. 
 You can be good in the Broad Walk all the time, 
 but not at the Round Pond, and the reason is that 
 you forget, and, when you remember, you are so 
 wet that you may as well be wetter. There are 
 men who sail boats on the Round Pond, such big 
 boats that they bring them in barrows and some- 
 times in perambulators, and then the baby has 
 to walk. The bow-legged children in the Gardens 
 are these who had to walk too soon because their 
 father needed the perambulator. 
 
 You always want to have a yacht to sail on the 
 Round Pond, and in the end your uncle gives you 
 one; and to carry it to the Pond the first day is 
 splendid, also to talk about it to boys who have no 
 uncle is splendid, but soon you like to leave it at 
 home. For the sweetest craft that slips her moorings 
 in the Round Pond is what is called a stick-boat, 
 because she is rather like a stick until she is in the 
 water and you are holding the string. Then as you 
 walk round, pulling her, you see little men running 
 about her deck, and sails rise magically and catch 
 the breeze, and you put in on dirty nights at snug 
 150 
 

TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 harbours which are unknown to the lordly yachts. 
 Night passes in a twink, and again your rakish 
 craft noses for the wind, whales spout, you glide 
 over buried cities, and have brushes with pirates 
 and cast anchor on coral isles. You are a solitary 
 boy while all this is taking place, for two boys 
 together cannot adventure far upon the Round 
 Pond, and though you may talk to yourself 
 throughout the voyage, giving orders and execut- 
 ing them with dispatch, you know not, when it is 
 time to go home, where you have been or what 
 swelled your sails ; your treasure-trove is all locked 
 away in your hold, so to speak, which wiU be 
 opened, perhaps, by another little boy many years 
 afterward. 
 
 But those yachts have nothing in their hold. Does 
 anyone return to this haunt of his youth because 
 of the yachts that used to sail it? Oh, no. It is 
 the stick-boat that is freighted with memories. The 
 yachts are toys, tiieir owner a fresh-water mariner, 
 they can cross and recross a pond only while the 
 stick-boat goes to sea. You yachtsmen with your 
 wands, who think we are aU there to gaze on you, 
 151 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 your ships are only accidents of this place, and 
 were they all to be boarded and sunk by the ducks 
 the real business of the Round Pond would be car- 
 ried on as usual. 
 
 Paths from everywhere crowd like children to 
 the pond. Some of them are ordinary paths, which 
 have a rail on each side, and are made by men with 
 their coats off, but others are vagrants, wide at one 
 spot and at another so narrow that you can stand 
 astride them. They are called Paths that have 
 Made Themselves, and David did wish he could see 
 them doing it. But, like all the most wonderful 
 things that happen in the Gardens, it is done, we 
 concluded, at night after the gates are closed. We 
 have also decided that the paths make themselves 
 because it is their only chance of getting to the 
 Round Pond. 
 
 One of these gypsy paths comes from the place 
 where the sheep get their hair cut. When David 
 shed his curls at the hair-dresser's, I am told, he 
 said good-bye to them without a tremor, though 
 Mary has never been quite the same bright creature 
 since, so he despises the sheep as they run from 
 152 
 
TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 their shearer and calls out tauntingly, "Cowardy, 
 cowardy custard!" But when the man grips them 
 between his legs David shakes a fist at him for 
 using such big scissors. Another startling moment 
 is when the man turns back the grimy wool from 
 the sheeps' shoulders and they look suddenly like 
 ladies in the stalls of a theatre. The sheep are so 
 frightened by the shearing that it makes them quite 
 white and thin, and as soon as they are set free they 
 begin to nibble the grass at once, quite anxiously, 
 as if they feared that they would never be worth 
 eating. David wonders whether they know each 
 other, now that they are so different, and if it makes 
 them fight with the wrong ones. They are great 
 fighters, and thus so unlike country sheep that 
 every year they give Porthos a shock. He can make 
 a field of country sheep fly by merely announcing 
 his approach, but these town sheep come toward 
 him with no promise of gentle entertainment, and 
 then a light from last year breaks upon Porthos. 
 He cannot with dignity retreat, but he stops and 
 looks about him as if lost in admiration of the 
 scenery, and presently he strolls away with a fine 
 153 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 indifference and a glint at me from the comer of 
 his eye. 
 
 The Serpentine begins near here. It is a lovely 
 lake, and there is a drowned forest at the bottom 
 of it. If you peer over the edge you can see the 
 trees all growing upside down, and they say that 
 at night there are also drowned stars in it. If so, 
 Peter Pan sees them when he is sailing across the 
 lake in the Thrush's Nest. A small part only of 
 the Serpentine is in the Gardens, for soon it passes 
 beneath a bridge to far away where the island is 
 on which all the birds are born that become baby 
 boys and girls. No one who is human, except Peter 
 Pan (and he is only half human), can land on the 
 island, but you may write what you want (boy or 
 girl, dark or fair) on a piece of paper, and then 
 twist it into the shape of a boat and slip it into 
 the water, and it reaches Peter Pan's island after 
 dark. 
 
 We are on the way home now, though, of course, 
 
 it is all pretence that we can go to so many of 
 
 the places in one day. I should have had to be 
 
 carrying David long ago and resting on evra-y seat 
 
 154 
 
TOUR OF THE GARDENS 
 
 like old Mr. Salf ord. That was what we called him, 
 because he always talked to us of a lovely place 
 called Salford where he had been bom. He was a 
 crab-apple of an old gentleman who wandered all 
 day in the Gardens from seat to seat trying to fall 
 in with somebody who was acquainted with the 
 town of Salford, and when we had known him for 
 a year or more we actually did meet another aged 
 solitary who had once spent Saturday to Monday 
 In Salford. He was meek and timid and carried 
 his address inside his hat, and whatever part of 
 London he was in search of he always went to the 
 General Post-office first as a starting-point. Him 
 we carried in triumph to our other friend, with 
 the story of that Saturday to Monday, and never 
 shall I forget the gloating joy with which Mr. 
 Salford leapt at him. They have been cronies evar 
 since, and I notice that Mr. Salford, who naturally 
 does most of the talking, keeps tight grip of the 
 other old man's coat. 
 
 The two last places before you come to our gate 
 are the Dog's Cemetery and the chaffinch's nest, 
 but we pretend not to know what the Dog's Cem^- 
 155 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 tery is, as Porthos is always with us. The nest is 
 very sad. It is quite white, and the way we found 
 it was wonderful. We were having another look 
 among the bushes for David's lost worsted ball, 
 and instead of the ball we foiind a lovely nest 
 made of the worsted, and containing four eggs, 
 with scratches on them very like David's hand- 
 writing, so we think they must have been the 
 mother's love-letters to the little ones inside. Every 
 day we were in the Gardens we paid a call at the 
 nest, taking care that no cruel boy should see us, 
 and we dropped crumbs, and soon the bird knew 
 us as friends, and sat in the nest looking at us 
 kindly with her shoulders hunched up. But one day 
 when we went, there were only two eggs in the nest, 
 and the next time there were none. The saddest 
 part of it was that the poor little chaffinch fluttered 
 about the bushes, looking so reproachfully at us 
 that we knew she thought we had done it, and 
 though David tried to explain to her. It was so 
 long since he had spoken the bird language that 
 I fear she did not understand. He and I left the 
 Gardens that day with our knuckles in our eyes. 
 156 
 
XIV 
 
 PETER PAN 
 
 XF you ask your mother whether she knew about 
 Peter Pan when she was a little girl she will say, 
 "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you ask her 
 whether he rode on a goat in those days she will 
 say, "What a foolish question to ask ; certainly he 
 did." Then if you ask your grandmother whether 
 she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, 
 she also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but 
 if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those 
 days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. 
 Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes 
 forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which 
 is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly for- 
 get such an important thing as the goat. There- 
 fore there was no goat when your grandmother 
 was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the 
 story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most 
 people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket 
 before your vest. 
 
 157 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so 
 old, but he is really always the same age, so that 
 does not matter in the least. His age is one week, 
 and though he was bom so long ago he has never 
 had a birthday, nor is there the slightest chance 
 of his ever having one. The reason is that he 
 escaped from being a human when he was seven 
 days' old ; he escaped by the window and flew back 
 to the Kensington Gardens. 
 
 If you think he was the only baby who ever 
 wanted to escape, it shows how completely you have 
 forgotten your own young days. When David 
 heard this story first he was quite certain that he 
 had never tried to escape, but I told him to think 
 back hard, pressing his hands to his temples, and 
 when he had done this hard, and even harder, 
 he distinctly remembered a youthful desire to re- 
 turn to the tree-tops, and with that memory came 
 others, as that he had lain in bed planning to es- 
 cape as soon as his mother was asleep, and how she 
 had once caught him half-way up the chimney. 
 All children could have such recollections if they 
 would press their hands hard to their temples, for. 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 having been birds before they were human, they 
 are naturally a little wild during the first few 
 weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders, where their 
 wings used to be. So David tells me. 
 
 I ought to mention here that the following is 
 our way with a story : First, I tell It to him, and 
 then he tells it to me, the understanding being that 
 it is quite a different story; and then I retell it 
 with his additions, and so we go on until no one 
 could say whether it is more his story or mine. In 
 this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald nar- 
 rative and most of the moral reflections are mine, 
 though not all, for this boy can be a stem moralist, 
 but the interesting bits about the ways and cus- 
 toms of babies in the bird-stage are mostly remi- 
 niscences of David's, recalled by pressing his hands 
 to his temples and thinking hard. 
 
 Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which 
 had no bars. Standing on the ledge he could see 
 trees far away, which were doubtless the Kensing- 
 ton Gardens, and the moment he saw them he en- 
 tirely forgot that he was now a little boy in a night- 
 gown,, and away he flew, right over the houses to 
 159 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the Gardens. It is wonderful that he coiild fly with- 
 out wings, but the place itched tremendously, and, 
 perhaps we could all fly if we were as dead-confi- 
 dent-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter 
 Pan that evening. 
 
 He aUghted gaUy on the open sward, between 
 the Baby's Palace and the Serpentine, and the first 
 thing he did was to lie on his back and kick. He was 
 quite unaware already that he had ever been hu- 
 man, and thought he was a bird, even in appear- 
 ance, just the same as in his early days, and when 
 he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that 
 the reason he missed it was because he had at- 
 tempted to seize it with his hand, which, of course, 
 a bird never does. He saw, however, that it must 
 be past Lock-out Time, for there were a good many 
 fairies about, all too busy to notice him ; they were 
 getting breakfast ready, milking their cows, draw- 
 ing water, and so on, and the sight of the water- 
 pails made him thirsty, so he flew over to the Round 
 Pond to have a drink. He stooped, and dipped 
 his beak in the pond; he thought it was his beak, 
 but, of course, it was only his noge, and, therefore, 
 160 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 very little water came up, and that not so refresh- 
 ing as usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he 
 fell flop into it. When a real bird falls in 
 flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them 
 dry, but Peter could not remember what was 
 the thing to do, and he decided, rather sulkily, 
 to go to sleep on the weeping beech in the Baby 
 Walk. 
 
 At first he found some difficulty in balancing 
 himself on a branch, but presently he remembered 
 the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long before 
 morning, shivering, and saying to himself, "I never 
 was out in such a cold night;" he had really been 
 out in colder nights when he was a bird, but, of 
 course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm 
 night to a bird is a cold night to a boy in a night- 
 gown. Peter also felt strangely uncomfortable, as 
 if his head was stuffy, he heard loud noises that 
 made him look round sharply, though they were 
 really himself sneezing. There was something he 
 wanted very much, but, though he knew he wanted 
 it, he could not think what it was. What he wanted 
 so much was his mother to blow his nose, but that 
 161 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 never struck him, so he decided to appeal to the 
 fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed to 
 know a good deal. 
 
 There were two of them strolling along the Baby 
 Walk, with their arms round each other's waists, 
 and he hopped down to address them. The fairies 
 have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give 
 a civil answer to a civil question, and he was quite 
 angry when these two ran away the moment they 
 saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair, 
 reading a postage-stamp which some human had 
 let fall, and when he heard Peter's voice he popped 
 in alarm behind a tulip. 
 
 To Peter's bewilderment he discovered that every 
 fairy he met fled from him. A band of workmen, 
 who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away, 
 leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned 
 her pail upside down and hid in it. Soon the Gar- 
 dens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies were run- 
 ning this way and that, asking each other stoutly, 
 who was afraid, lights were extinguished, doors 
 barricaded, and from the grounds of Queen Mab's 
 palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that 
 162 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 the royal guard had been called out. A regiment 
 of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, 
 armed with hoUy-leaves, with which they jog the 
 enemy horribly in passing. Peter heard the little 
 people crying everywhere that there was a human 
 in the Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never 
 thought for a moment that he was the human. He 
 was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more 
 wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, 
 but he pursued them with the vital question in 
 vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and even 
 the Lancers, when he approached them up the 
 Hump, turned swiftly into a side-walk, on the 
 pretence that they saw him there. 
 
 Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to con- 
 sult the birds, but now he remembered, as an odd 
 thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had 
 flown away when he alighted on it, and though 
 that had not troubled him at the time, he saw its 
 meaning now. Every living thing was shunning 
 him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, 
 and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he 
 was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that 
 163 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 he did nob know, for otherwise he would have lost 
 faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt 
 whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able 
 to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is 
 simply that they have perfect faith, for^to haye^ 
 fa,ith,is.tQ.have wings. 
 
 Now, except by flying, no one can reach the 
 island in the Serpentine, for the boats of humans 
 are forbidden to land there, and there are stakes 
 round it, standing up in the water, on each of 
 which a bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was 
 to the island that Peter now flew to put his strange 
 case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on 
 it with relief, much heartened to find himself at 
 last at home, as the birds call the island. All of 
 them were asleep, including the sentinels, except 
 Solomon, who was wide awake on one side, and he 
 listened quietly to Peter's adventures, and then told 
 him their true meaning. 
 
 "Look at your night-gown, if you don't believe 
 me," Solomon said, and with staring eyes Peter 
 looked at his night-gown, and then at the sleeping 
 birds. Not one of them wore anything. 
 164 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 "How many of your toes are thumbs ?" said Sol- 
 omon a little cruelly, and Peter saw to his conster- 
 nation, that all his toes were fingers. The shock was 
 so great that it drove away his cold. 
 
 "Ruffle your feathers," said that grim old Solo- 
 mon, and Peter tried most desperately hard to ruf- 
 fle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose up, 
 quaking, and for the first time since he stood on 
 the window-ledge, he remembered a lady who had 
 been very fond of him. 
 
 "I think I shall go back to mother," he said 
 timidly. 
 
 "Good-bye," replied Solomon Caw with a queer 
 look. 
 
 But Peter hesitated. "Why don't you go?" the 
 old one asked poUtely. 
 
 "I suppose," said Peter huskily, "I suppose I 
 can still fly?" 
 
 You see, he had lost faith. 
 
 "Poor little half-and-half," said Solomon, who 
 was not reaUy hard-hearted, "you will never be able 
 to fly again, not even on windy days. You must 
 live here on the island always." 
 165 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "And never even go to the Kensington Gar- 
 dens?" Peter asked tragically. 
 
 "How could you get across?" said Solomon. He 
 promised very kindly, however, to teach Peter as 
 many of the bird ways as could be learned by one 
 of such an awkward shape. 
 
 "Then I sha'n't be exactly a human?" PeteE 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nor exacdy a bird?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What shall I be.?" 
 
 "You will be a BetwIxt-and-Between," Solomon 
 said, and certainly he was a wise old fellow, for 
 that is exactly how it turned out. 
 
 The birds on the island never got used to him. 
 His oddities tickled them every day, as if they were 
 quite new, though it was really the birds that were 
 new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed 
 at him at once, then off they soon flew to be humans, 
 and other birds came out of other eggs, and so it 
 went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when 
 they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get the 
 166 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 young one to break their shells a day before the 
 right time by whispering to them that now was 
 their chance to see Peter washing or drinking or 
 eating. Thousands gathered round him daily to 
 watch him do these things, just as you watch the 
 peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he 
 lifted the crusts they flung him with his hands 
 instead of in the usual way with the mouth. All his 
 food was brought to him from the Gardens at Sol- 
 omon's orders by the birds. He would not eat worms 
 or insects (which they thought very siUy of him), 
 so they brought him bread in their beaks. Thus, 
 when you cry out, "Greedy ! Greedy !" to the bird 
 that flies away with the big crust, you know now 
 that you ought not to do this, for he is very likely 
 taking it to Peter Pan. 
 
 Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds 
 were always begging him for bits of it to hne their 
 nests with, and, being very good-natured, he could 
 not refuse, so by Solomon's advice he had hidden 
 what was left of it. But, though he was now quite 
 naked, you must not think that he was cold or un- 
 happy. He was usually very happy and gay, and 
 167 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the reason was that Solomon had kept his promise 
 and taught him many of the bird ways. To be easily 
 pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing 
 something, and to think that whatever he was doing 
 was a thing of vast importance. Peter became very 
 clever at helping the birds to build their nests; 
 soon he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and 
 nearly as well as a blackbird, though never did he 
 satisfy the finches, and he made nice little water- 
 troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the 
 young ones with his fingers. He also became very 
 learned in bird-lore, and knew an east-wind from 
 a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the grass 
 growing and hear the insects walking about inside 
 the tree-trunks. But the best thing Solomon had 
 done was to teach him to have a glad heart. All 
 birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, 
 and so as they were the only kind of heart Solomon 
 knew about, it was easy to him to teach Peter how 
 to have one. 
 
 Peter's heart was so glad that he felt he must 
 sing all day long, just as the birds sing for joy, 
 but, being partly human, he needed an instrument, 
 168 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by 
 the shore of the island of an evening, practising 
 the sough of the wind and the ripple of the water, 
 and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, 
 and he put them all in his pipe and played them 
 so beautifully that even the birds were deceived, 
 and they would say to each other, "Was that a 
 fish leaping in the water or was it Peter playing 
 leaping fish on his pipe ?" and sometimes he played 
 the birth of birds, and then the mothers would turn 
 round in their nests to see whether they had laid an 
 egg. If you are a child of the Gardens you must 
 know the chestnut-tree near the bridge, which comes 
 out in flower first of all the chestnuts, but perhaps 
 you have not heard why this tree leads the way. It 
 is because Peter wearies for summer and plays that 
 it has come, and the chestnut being so near, hears 
 him and is cheated. 
 
 But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely 
 on his pipe he sometimes fell into sad thoughts 
 and then the music became sad also, and the reason 
 of all this sadness was that he could not reach 
 the Gardens, though he could see them through 
 169 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the arch of the bridge. He knew he could '.Q\er be 
 a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be 
 one, but oh, how he longed to play as other children 
 play, and of course there is no such lovely place 
 to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him 
 news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears 
 started in Peter's eyes. 
 
 Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. 
 The reason was that he could not swim. He wanted 
 to know how to swim, but no one on the island knew 
 the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. 
 They were quite willing to teach him, but all they 
 could say about it was, "You sit down on the top 
 of the water in this way, and then you kick out 
 like that." Peter tried it often, but always before 
 he could kick out he sank. What he really needed 
 to know was how you sit on the water without 
 sinking, and they said it was quite impossible to 
 explain such an easy thing as that. Occasionally 
 swans touched on the island, and he would give 
 them all his day's food and then ask them how they 
 sat on the water, but as soon as he had no more to 
 give them the hateful things hissed at him and 
 sailed away. 
 
 170 
 
PETER PAN 
 
 Once he really thought he had discovered a way 
 of reaching the Gardens. A wonderful white thing, 
 like a runaway newspaper, floated high over the 
 island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after 
 the manner of a bird that has broken its wing. 
 Peter was so frightened that he hid, but the birds 
 told him it was only a kite, and what a kite is, and 
 that it must have tugged its string out of a boy's 
 hand, and soared away. After that they laughed 
 at Peter for being so fond of the kite, he loved it 
 so much that he even slept with one hand on it, 
 and I think this was pathetic and pretty, for 
 the reason he loved it was because it had belonged 
 to a real boy. 
 
 To the birds this was a very poor reason, but 
 the older ones felt grateful to him at this time be- 
 cause he had nursed a number of fledglings through 
 the German measles, and they offered to show him 
 how birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of 
 the string in their beaks and flew away with it ; and 
 to his amazement it flew after them and went even 
 higher than they. 
 
 Peter screamed out, "Do it again!" and with 
 171 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 great good-nature they did it several times, and 
 always instead of thanking them he cried, "Do it 
 again!" which shows that even now he had not 
 quite forgotten what it was to be a boy. 
 
 At last, with a grand design burning within his 
 brave heart, he begged them to do it once more with 
 him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred flew 
 off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, 
 meaning to drop off when he was over the Gardens. 
 But the kite broke to pieces in the air, and he would 
 have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught 
 hold of two indignant swans and made them carry 
 him to the island. After this the birds said that they 
 would help him no more in his mad enterprise. 
 
 Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last 
 by the help of Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell 
 you. 
 
 17« 
 
XV 
 
 THE thrush's nest 
 
 Shelley was a young gentleman and as 
 grown-up as he need ever expect to be. He was_a__ 
 poet; and thej ate never exactly grown-up. They 
 are people who despise money except what you need 
 for to-day, and he had all that and five pounds 
 over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington 
 Gardens, he made a paper boat of his bank-note, 
 and sent it sailing on the Serpentine. 
 
 It reached the island at night : and the look-out 
 brought it to Solomon Caw, who thought at first 
 that it was the usual thing, a message from a lady, 
 saying she would be obliged if he could let her 
 have a good one. They always ask for the best one 
 he has, and if he likes the letter he sends one from 
 Class A ; but if it ruffles him he sends very funny 
 ones indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and 
 at another time he sends a nestful; it all depends 
 on the mood you catch him in. He likes you to 
 173 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 leave it all to him, and if you mention particularly 
 that you hope he will see his way to making it a 
 hoy this time, he is almost sure to send another girl. 
 And whether you are a lady or only a little boy 
 who wants a baby-sister, always take pains to write 
 your address clearly. You can't think what a lot 
 of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house. 
 
 Shelley's boat, when opened, completely puzzled 
 Solomon, and he took counsel of his assistants, who 
 having walked over it twice, first with their toes 
 pointed out, and then with their, toes pointed in, 
 decided that it came from some greedy person who 
 wanted five. They thought this because there was 
 a large five printed on it. "Preposterous!" cried 
 Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; 
 anything useless which drifted upon the island was 
 usually given to Peter as a play-thing. 
 
 But he did not play with his precious bank-note, 
 for he knew what it was at once, having been very 
 observant during the week when he was an ordi- 
 nary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he 
 could surely at last contrive to reach the Gardens, 
 and he considered all the possible ways, and de- 
 174 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 cided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. 
 But, first, he had to tell the birds of the value of 
 Shelley's boat; and though they were too honest 
 to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, 
 and they cast such black looks at Solomon, whc 
 was rather vain of his cleverness, that he flew awa}' 
 to the end of the island, and sat there very de- 
 pressed with his head buried in his wings. Now 
 Peter knew that unless Solomon was on your side, 
 you never got anything done for you in the island, 
 so he followed him and tried to hearten him. 
 
 Nor was this all that Peter did to gain the 
 powerful old fellow's good wUl. You must know 
 that Solomon had no intention of remaining in 
 ofBce aU his hfe. He looked forward to retiring by- 
 and-by, and devoting his green old age to a life 
 of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs 
 which had taken his fancy, and for years he had 
 been quietly filling his stocking. It was a stocking 
 belonging to some bathing person which had been 
 cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of 
 it contained a hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty- 
 four nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper and a boot- 
 175 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 lace. When his stocking was full, Solomon calcu- 
 lated that he would be able to retire on a com- 
 petency. Peter now gave him a pound. He cut it 
 off his bank-note with a sharp stick. 
 
 This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after 
 the two had consulted together they called a meet- 
 ing of the thrushes. You will see presently why 
 thrushes only were invited. 
 
 The scheme to be put before them was reaUy 
 Peter's, but Solomon did most of the talking, be- 
 cause he soon became irritable if other people 
 talked. He began by saying that he had been much 
 impressed by the superior ingenuity shown by the 
 thrushes in nest-building, and this put them into 
 good-humour at once, as it wa^ meant to do; for 
 aU the quarrels between birds are about the best 
 way of building nests. Other birds, said Solomon, 
 omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a result 
 they did not hold water. Here he cocked his head 
 as if he had used an unanswerable argument; but, 
 unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come to the meet- 
 ing uninvited, and she squeaked out, "We don't 
 build nests to hold water, but to hold eggs," and 
 176 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 then the thrushes stopped cheering, and Solomon 
 was so perplexed that he took several sips of water. 
 
 "Consider," he said at last, "how warm the mud 
 makes the nest." 
 
 "Consider," cried Mrs. Finch, "that when water 
 gets into the nest it remains there and your Uttle 
 ones are drowned." 
 
 The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say 
 something crushing in reply to this, but again he 
 was perplexed. 
 
 "Try another drink," suggested Mrs. Finch 
 pertly. Kate was her name, and all Kates are saucy. 
 
 Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired 
 him. "If," said he, "a finch's nest is placed on the 
 Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces, but a 
 thrush's nest is stiU as dry as the cup of a swan's 
 back." 
 
 How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew 
 why they hned their nests with mud, and when Mrs. 
 Finch called out, "We don't place our nests on the 
 Serpentine," they did what they should have done 
 at first: chased her from the meeting. After this 
 it was most orderly. What they had been brought 
 177 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their 
 young friend, Peter Pan, as they well knew, wanted 
 very much to be able to cross to the Gardens, and 
 he now proposed, with their help, to build a boat. 
 
 At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made 
 Peter tremble for his scheme. 
 
 Solomon explained hastily that what he meant 
 was not one of the cumbrous boats that humans 
 use ; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush's 
 nest large enough to hold Peter. 
 
 But still, to Peter's agony, the thrushes were 
 sulky. "We are very busy people," they grumbled, 
 "and this would be a big job." 
 
 "Quite so," said Solomon, "and, of course, Peter 
 would not allow you to work for nothing. You 
 must remember that he is now in comfortable cir- 
 cumstances, and he will pay you such wages as 
 you have never been paid before. Peter Pan 
 authorises me to say that you shall all be paid 
 sixpence a day." 
 
 Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that 
 very day was begun the celebrated Building of the 
 Boat. AU their ordinary business fell into arrears. 
 178 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 It was the time of year when they should have 
 been pairing, but not a thrush's nest was built ex- 
 cept this big one, and so Solomon soon ran short 
 of thrushes with which to supply the demand from 
 the mainland. The stout, rather greedy children, 
 who look so well in perambulators but get puffed 
 easily when they walk, were all young thrushes 
 once, and ladies often ask specially for them. What 
 do you think Solomon did.f" He sent over to the 
 house-tops for a lot of sparrows and ordered them 
 to lay their eggs in old thrushes' nests and sent 
 their young to the ladies and swore they were all 
 thrushes ! It was known afterward on the island as 
 the Sparrows' Year, and so, when you meet, as you 
 doubtless sometimes do, grown-up people who pufF 
 and blow as if they thought themselves bigger than 
 they are, very likely they belong to that year. You 
 ask them. 
 
 Peter was a just master, and paid his work- 
 people every evening. They stood in rows on the 
 branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper 
 sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he 
 "ailed the roU, and then each bird, as the names 
 179 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence. It 
 must have been a fine sight. 
 
 And at last, after months of labor, the boat was 
 finished. Oh, the deportment of Peter as he saw it 
 growing more and more like a great thrush's nest! 
 From the very beginning of the building of it he 
 slept by its side, and often woke up to say sweet 
 things to it, and after it was lined with mud and 
 the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps 
 in his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curl- 
 ing round in it, for it is just large enough to hold 
 him comfortably when he curls round like a kitten. 
 It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is 
 mostly green, being woven of grass and twigs, and 
 when these wither or snap the walls are thatched 
 afresh. There are also a few feathers here and 
 there, which came off the thrushes while they were 
 building. 
 
 The other birds were extremely jealous and said 
 that the boat would not balance on the water, but 
 it lay most beautifully steady ; they said the water 
 would come into it, but no water came into it. Next 
 they said that Peter had no oars, and this caused 
 180 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 the thrushes to look at each other in dismay, but 
 Peter replied that he had no need of oars, for he 
 had a sail, and with such a proud, happy face he 
 produced a sail which he had fashioned out of his 
 night-gown, and though it was still rather like a 
 night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, 
 the moon being full, and all the birds asleep, he 
 did enter his coracle (as Master Francis Pretty 
 would have said) and depart out of the island. 
 And first, he knew not why, he looked upward, with 
 his hands clasped, and from that moment his eyes 
 were pinned to the west. 
 
 He had promised the thrushes to begin by mak- 
 ing short voyages, with them to his guides, but 
 far away he saw the Kensington Gardens beckon- 
 ing to him beneath the bridge, and he could not 
 wait. His face was flushed, but he never looked 
 back ; there was an exultation in his little breast 
 that drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant 
 of the English mariners who have sailed westward 
 to meet the Unknown? 
 
 At first, his boat turned round and round, and 
 he was driven back to the place of his starting, 
 181 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 whereupon he shortened sail, by removing one of 
 the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by 
 a contrary breeze, to his no small peril. He now 
 let go the sail, with the result that he was drifted 
 toward the far shore, where are black shadows he 
 knew not the dangers of, but suspected them, and 
 so once more hoisted his night-gown and went 
 roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring 
 wind, which bore him westward, but at so great 
 a speed that he was like to be broke against the 
 bridge. Which, having avoided, he passed under 
 the bridge and came, to his great rejoicing, within 
 full sight of the delectable Gardens. But having 
 tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end 
 of a piece of the kite-string, he found no bottom, 
 and was fain to hold off, seeking for moorage, and, 
 feeling his way, he buffeted against a sunken reef 
 that cast him overboard by the greatness of the 
 shock, and he was near to being drowned, but clam- 
 bered back into the vessel. There now arose a 
 ■mighty storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, 
 such as he had never heard the like, and he was 
 tossed this way and that, and his hands so numbed 
 182 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 with the cold that he could not close them. Having 
 escaped the danger of which, he was mercifully 
 carried into a small bay, where his boat rode at 
 peace. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on 
 pretending to disembark, he found a multitude of 
 small people drawn up on the shore to contest his 
 landing, and shouting shrilly to him to be oflF , for 
 it was long past Lock-out Time. This, with much 
 brandishing of their holly-leaves, and also a com- 
 pany of them carried an arrow which some boy 
 had left in the Gardens, and this they were pre- 
 pared to use as a battering-ram. 
 
 Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, 
 called out that he was not an ordinary human and 
 had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be 
 their friend; nevertheless, having found a jolly 
 harbour, he was in no temper to draw off there- 
 from, and he warned them if they sought to mis- 
 chief him to stand to their harms. 
 
 So saying, he boldly leapt ashore, and they 
 gathered around him with intent to slay him, but 
 there then arose a great cry among the women, 
 183 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 and it was because they had now observed that his 
 sail was a baby's night-gown. Whereupon, they 
 straightway loved him, and grieved that their laps 
 were too small, the which I cannot explain, except 
 by saying that such is the way of women. The 
 men-fairies now sheathed their weapons on observ- 
 ing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelli- 
 gence they set great store, and they led him civilly 
 to their queen, who conferred upon him the cour- 
 tesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and 
 henceforth Peter could go whither he chose, and 
 the fairies had orders to put him in comfort. 
 
 Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and 
 you may gather from the antiquity of the lan- 
 guage that it took place a long time ago. But Peter 
 never grows any older, and if we could be watch- 
 ing for him under the bridge to-night (but, of 
 course, we can't), I daresay we should see him 
 hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling 
 toward us in the Thrush's Nest. When he sails, he 
 sits down, but he stands up to paddle. I shall tell 
 you presently how he got his paddle. 
 
 Long before the time for the opening of the 
 184 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 gates comes he steals back to the island, for people 
 must not see him (he is not so human as all that), 
 but this gives him hours for play, and he plays 
 exactly as real children play. At least he thinks 
 so, and it is one of the pathetic things about him 
 that he often plays quite wrongly. 
 
 You see, he had no one to tell him how children 
 really play, for the fairies were all more or less 
 in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing, and 
 though the birds pretended that they could tell him 
 a great deal, when the time for telling came, it was 
 wonderful how little they really knew. They told 
 him the truth about hide-and-seek, and he often 
 plays it by himself, but even the ducks on the 
 Round Pond could not explain to him what it is 
 that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every 
 night the ducks have forgotten all the events of 
 the day, except the number of pieces of cake 
 thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and 
 say that cake is not what it was in their young 
 days. 
 
 So Peter had to find out many things for him- 
 self. He often played ships at the Round Pond, but 
 185 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 his ship was only a hoop which he had found on 
 the grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and 
 he wondered what you play at with them, and de- 
 cided that you play at pretending they are boats. 
 This hoop always sank at once, but he waded in 
 for it, and sometimes he dragged it gleefully 
 round the rim of the pond, and he was quite proud 
 to think that he had discovered what boys do with 
 hoops. 
 
 Another time, when he found a child's pail, he 
 thought it was for sitting in, and he sat so hard 
 in it that he could scarcely get out of it. Also he 
 found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the 
 Hump, quite as if it was having a game by itself, 
 and he caught it after an exciting chase. But he 
 thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told 
 him that boys kick balls, so he kicked it ; and after 
 that he could not find It anywhere. 
 
 Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was 
 a perambulator. It was under a lime-tree, near the 
 entrance to the Fairy Queen's Winter Palace 
 (which is within the circle of the seven Spanish 
 chestnuts), and Peter approached it warily, for 
 186 
 
THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 the birds had never mentioned such things to him. 
 Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then, 
 as it gave no answer, he went nearer and felt it 
 cautiously. He gave it a little push, and it ran 
 from him, which made him think it must be alive 
 after all; but, as it had run from him, he was not 
 afraid. So he stretched out his hand to pull it to 
 him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so 
 alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away 
 to his boat. You must not think, however, that he 
 was a coward, for he came back next night with 
 a crust in one hand and a stick in the other, but 
 the perambulator had gone, and he never saw an- 
 other one. I have promised to tell you also about 
 his paddle. It was a child's spade which he had 
 found near St. Govor's Well, and he thought it 
 was a paddle. 
 
 Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mis- 
 takes.-' If so, I think it rather silly of you. What 
 I mean is that, of covu-se, one must pity him now 
 and then, but to pity him all the time would be 
 impertinence. He thought he had the most splendid 
 time in the Gardens, and to think you have it is 
 187 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 almost quite as good as really to have it. He played 
 without ceasing, while you often waste time by 
 being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He could be nei- 
 ther of these things, for he had never heard of 
 them, but do you think he is to be pitied for that? 
 
 Oh, he was merry. He was as much merrier than 
 you, for instance, as you are merrier than your 
 father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top, from 
 sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leap- 
 ing the fences of the Gardens.? That is how Peter 
 leaps them. 
 
 And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen 
 who walk home at night write to the papers to 
 say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens, but 
 it is really Peter's pipe they hear. Of course, he 
 had no mother — at least, what use was she to him? 
 You can be sorry for him for that, but don't be 
 too sorry, for the next thing I mean to teU you is 
 how he revisited her. It was the fairies who gave 
 him the chance. 
 
 188 
 
XVI 
 
 liOCS-OUT TIME 
 
 AT is frightfully difficult to know much about the 
 fairies, and almost- the only thing known for cer- 
 tain is that there are fairies wherever there are 
 children. Long ago children were forbidden the 
 Gardens, and at that time there was not a fairy 
 in the place; then the children were admitted, and 
 the fairies came trooping in that very evening. 
 They can't resist following the children, but you 
 seldom see them, partly because they live in the 
 daytime behind the railings, where you are not al- 
 lowed to go, and also partly because they are so 
 cunning. They are not a bit cunning after Lock- 
 out, but until Lock-out, my word! 
 
 When you were a bird you knew the fairies 
 pretty weU, and you remember a good deal about 
 them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity 
 you can't write down, for gradually you forget, 
 and I have heard of children who declared that 
 189 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if 
 they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they 
 were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The 
 reason they were cheated was that she pretended 
 to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. 
 They usually pretend to be flowers, because the 
 court sits in the Fairies' Basin, and there are so 
 many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, 
 that a flower is the thing least likely to attract 
 attention. They dress exactly Hke flowers, and 
 change with the seasons, putting on white when 
 lilies are in and blue for blue-bells, and so on. They 
 like crocus and hyacinth time best of aU, as they 
 are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except 
 white ones, which are the fairy-cradles) they con- 
 sider garish, and they sometimes put ofi' dressing 
 like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the 
 tulip weeks is almost the best time to catch them. 
 
 When they think you are not looking they skip 
 along pretty lively, but if you look and they fear 
 there is no time to hide, they stand quite still, pre- 
 tending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed 
 without knowing that they were fairies, they rush 
 190 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 home and tell their mothers they have had such an 
 adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is all 
 covered with ground-ivy (from which they make 
 their castor-oil), with flowers growing in it here 
 and there. Most of them really are flowers, but 
 some of them are fairies. You never can be sure 
 of them, but a good plan is to walk by looking the 
 other way, and then turn round sharply. Another 
 good plan, which David and I sometimes follow, 
 is to stare them down. After a long time they can't 
 help winking, and then you know for certain that 
 they are fairies. 
 
 There are also numbers of them along the Baby 
 Walk, which is a famous gentle place, as spots 
 frequented by fairies are called. Once twenty-four 
 of them had an extraordinary adventure. They 
 were a girls' school out for a walk with the gov- 
 erness, and all wearing hyacinth gowns, when she 
 suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then 
 they all stood still on an empty bed and pretended 
 to be hyacinths. Unfortunately, what the governess 
 had heard (vas two gardeners coming to plant new 
 flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a 
 191 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 handcart with the flowers in it, and were quite sur- 
 prised to find the bed occupied. " Pity to lift them 
 hyacinths," said the one man. " Duke's orders," re- 
 phed the other, and, having emptied the cart, they 
 dug up the boarding-school and put the poor, ter- 
 rified things in it in five rows. Of course, neither 
 the governess nor the girls dare let on that they 
 were fairies, so they were carted far away to a 
 potting-shed, out of which they escaped in the 
 night without their shoes, but there was a great 
 row about it among the parents, and the school 
 was ruined. 
 
 As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, 
 because they are the exact opposite of our houses. 
 You can see our houses by day but you can't see 
 them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by 
 dark, but you can't see them by day, for they are 
 the colour of night, and I never heard of anyone 
 yet who could see night in the daytime. This does 
 not mean that they are black, for night has its 
 colours just as day has, but ever so much brighter. 
 Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with 
 a light behind them. The palace is entirely built 
 192 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 of many-coloured glasses, and is quite the loveliest 
 of all royal residences, but the queen sometimes 
 complains because the common people will peep in 
 to see what she is doing. They are very inquisitive 
 folk, and press quite hard against the glass, and 
 that is why their noses are mostly snubby. The 
 streets are miles long and very twisty, and have 
 paths on each side made of bright worsted. The 
 birds used to steal the worsted for their nests, but 
 a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the 
 other end. 
 
 One of the great differences between the fairies 
 and us is that they never do anything useful. When 
 the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh 
 broke into a million pieces, and they aU went skip- 
 ping about. That was the beginning of fairies. 
 They look tremendously busy, you know, as if they 
 had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask 
 them what they are doing, they could not teU you 
 in the least. They are frightfully ignorant, and 
 everything they do is make-believe. They have a 
 postman, but he never calls except at Christmas 
 with his little box, and though they have beautiful 
 193 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 schools, nothing is taught in them; the youngest 
 child being chief person is always elected mistress, 
 and when she has called the roll, they all go out 
 for a walk and never come back. It is a very notice- 
 able thing that, in fairy families, the youngest is 
 always chief person, and usually becomes a prince 
 or princess ; and children remember this, and think 
 it must be so among humans also, and that is why 
 they are often made uneasy when they come upon 
 their mother furtively putting new frills on the 
 basinette. 
 
 You have probably observed that your baby- 
 sister wants to do all sorts of things that your 
 mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand 
 up at sitting-down time, and to sit down at stand- 
 ing-up time, for instance, or to wake up when she 
 should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when she 
 is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps 
 you put this down to naughtiness. But it is not; 
 it simply means that she is doing as she has seen 
 the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, 
 and it takes about two years to get her into the 
 human ways. Her fits of passion, which are awful 
 194 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 to behold, and are usually called teething, are no 
 such thing ; they are her natural exasperation, be- 
 cause we don't understand her, though she is talk- 
 ing an intelligible language. She is talking fairy. 
 The reason mothers and nurses know what her re- 
 marks mean, before other people know, as that 
 "Guch" means "Give it to me at once," while "Wa" 
 is "Why do you wear such a funny hat?" is be- 
 cause, mixing so much with babies, they have 
 picked up a little of the fairy language. 
 
 Of late David has been thinking back hard about 
 the fairy tongue, with his hands clutching his tem- 
 ples, and he has remembered a number of their 
 phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don't 
 forget. He had heard them in the days when he 
 was a thrush, and though I suggested to him that 
 perhaps it is really bird language he is remember- 
 ing, he says not, for these phrases are about fun 
 and adventures, and the birds talked of nothing 
 but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the 
 birds used to go from spot to spot like ladies at 
 shop-windows, looking at the different nests and 
 saying, "Not my colour, my dear," and "How 
 195 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 would that do with a soft lining?" and "But will 
 it wear?" and "What hideous trimming!" and 
 so on. 
 
 The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why 
 (Mie of the first things the baby does is to sign to 
 you to dance to him and then to cry when you do 
 it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in 
 what is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward 
 you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there 
 when they begin, but they make it by waltzing 
 round and round. Sometimes you will find mush- 
 rooms inside the ring, and these are fairy chairs 
 that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The 
 chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks 
 these little people leave behind them, and they 
 would remove even these were they not so fond 
 of dancing that they toe it tiU the very moment 
 of the opening of the gates. David and I once 
 found a fairy-ring quite warm. 
 
 But there is also a way of finding out about the 
 
 ball before it takes place. You know the boards 
 
 which teU at what time the Gardens are to close 
 
 to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly 
 
 196 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 change the hoard on a ball night, so that it says 
 the Gardens are to close at six-thirty for instance, 
 instead of at seven. This enables them to get begun 
 half an hour earlier. 
 
 If on such a night we could remain behind in the 
 Gardens, as the famous Maimie Mannering did, we 
 might see delicious sights, hundreds of lovely fai- 
 ries hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing 
 their wedding-rings round their waists, the gentle- 
 men, all in uniform, holding up the ladies' trains, 
 and linkmen running in front carrying winter 
 cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloak- 
 room where they put on their silver slippers and 
 get a ticket for their wraps, the flowers streaming 
 up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always 
 welcome because they can lend a pin, the supper- 
 table, with Queen Mab at the head of it, and be- 
 hind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries 
 a dandelion on which he blows when Her Majesty 
 wants to know the time. 
 
 The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, 
 and in May it is made of chestnut-blossom. The 
 way the fairy-servants do is this : The men, scores 
 197 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, 
 and the blossom falls like snow. Then the lady ser- 
 vants sweep it together by whisking their skirts 
 until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that is how 
 they get their table-cloth. 
 
 They have real glasses and real wine of three 
 kinds, namely, blackthorn wine, berberris wine, and 
 cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but the 
 bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour 
 out. There is bread and butter to begin with, of the 
 size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to end with, 
 and they are so small that they have no crumbs. 
 The fairies sit round on mushrooms, and at first 
 they are very well-behaved and always cough off 
 the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not 
 so well-behaved and stick their fingers into the but- 
 ter, which is got from the roots of old trees, and 
 the really horrid ones crawl over the table-cloth 
 chasing sugar or other delicacies with their 
 tongues. When the Queen sees them doing this she 
 signs to the servants to wash up and put away, 
 and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the 
 Queen walking in front while the Lord Chamber- 
 198 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 lain walks behind her, carrying two little pots, one 
 of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the 
 other the juice of Solomon's Seals. Wall-flower 
 juice is good for reviving dancers who fall to the 
 ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seals juice is for 
 bruises. They bruise very easily and when Peter 
 plays faster and faster they foot it till they fall 
 down in fits. For, as you know without my telling 
 you, Peter Pan is the fairies' orchestra. He sits 
 in the middle of the ring, and they would never 
 dream of having a smart dance nowadays 
 without him. "P. P." is written on the corner 
 of the invitation-cards sent out by all really 
 good families. They are grateful little people, too, 
 and at the princess's coming-of-age ball (they 
 come of age on their second birthday and have 
 a birthday every month) they gave him the wish 
 of his heart. 
 
 The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered 
 him to kneel, and then said that for playing so 
 beautifully she would give him the wish of his 
 heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear 
 what was the wish of his heart, but for a long time 
 199 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 he hesitated, not being certain what it was 
 himself. 
 
 "If I diose to go back to mother," he asked at 
 last, "could you give me that wish?" 
 
 Now this question vexed them, for were he to 
 return to his mother they should lose his music, 
 so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and 
 said, "Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than 
 that." 
 
 "Is that quite a little wish.''" he inquired. 
 
 "As little as this," the Queen answered, putting 
 her hands near each other. 
 
 "What size is a big wish.''" he asked. 
 
 She measured it off on her skirt and it was a 
 very handsome length. 
 
 Then Peter reflected and said, "Well, then, I 
 think I shall have two little wishes instead of one 
 big one." 
 
 Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his 
 cleverness rather shocked them, and he said that his 
 first wish was to go to his mother, but with the right 
 to return to the Gardens if he found her disap- 
 pointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve. 
 200 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 They faried to dissuade him, and even put ob- 
 stacles in the way. 
 
 "I can give you the power to fly to her house," 
 the Queen said, "but I can't open the door for 
 you." 
 
 "The window I flew out at will be open," Peter 
 said confidently. "Mother always keeps it open in 
 the hope that I may fly back." 
 
 "How do you know?" they asked, quite sur- 
 prised, and, really, Peter could not explain how 
 he knew. 
 
 "I just do know," he said. 
 
 So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant 
 it. The way they gave him power to fly was this: 
 They aU tickled him on the shoulder, and soon he 
 felt a funny itching in that part and then up he 
 rose higher and higher and flew away out of the 
 Gardens and over the house-tops. 
 
 It was so delicious that instead of flying straight 
 to his old home he skimmed away over St. Paul's 
 to the Crystal Palace and back by the river and 
 Regent's Park, and by the time he reached his 
 mother's window he had quite made up his mind 
 201 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 that his second wish should be to become a 
 bird. 
 
 The window was wide open, just as he knew it 
 would be, and in he fluttered, and there was his 
 mother lying asleep. Peter alighted softly on the 
 wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had a good 
 look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, 
 and the hollow in the piUow was like a nest lined 
 with her brown wavy hair. He remembered, though 
 he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her 
 hair a holiday at night. How sweet the friUs of her 
 night-gown were. He was very glad she was such 
 a pretty mother. 
 
 But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked 
 sad. One of her arms moved as if it wanted to go 
 round something, and he knew what it wanted to 
 go round. 
 
 "Oh, mother," said Peter to himself, "if you 
 just knew who is sitting on the rail at the foot of 
 the bed." 
 
 Very gently he patted the little mound that her 
 feet made, and he could see by her face that she 
 liked it. He knew he had but to say "Mother" ever 
 202 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 so softly, and she would wake up. They always 
 wake up at once if it is you that says their name. 
 Then she would give such a joyous cry and squeeze 
 him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, 
 how exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That 
 I am afraid is how Peter regarded it. In returning 
 to his mother he never doubted that he was giving 
 her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing 
 can be more splendid, he thought, than to have 
 a little boy of your own. How proud of him they 
 are ; and very right and proper, too. 
 
 But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why 
 does he not tell his mother that he has come back ? 
 
 I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he 
 sat there in two minds. Sometimes he looked long- 
 ingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked long- 
 ingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleas- 
 ant to be her boy again, but, on the other hand, 
 what times those had been in the Gardens ! Was he 
 so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? 
 He popped off the bed and opened some drawers 
 to have a look at his old garments. They were still 
 there, but he could not remember how you put them 
 203 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 on. The socks, for instance, were they worn on the 
 hands or on the feet? He was about to try one of 
 them on his hand, when he had a great adventure. 
 Perhaps the drawer had creaked ; at any rate, his 
 mother woke up, for he heard her say "Peter," as 
 if it was the most lovely word in the language. 
 He remained sitting on the floor and held his 
 breath, wondering how she knew that he had come 
 back. If she said "Peter" again, he meant to cry 
 "Mother" and run to her. But she spoke no more, 
 she made little moans only, and when next he 
 peeped at her she was once more asleep, with tears 
 on her face. 
 
 It made Peter very miserable, and what do you 
 think was the first thing he did.'' Sitting on the rail 
 at the foot of the bed, he played a beautiful lullaby 
 to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up him- 
 self out of the way she said "Peter," and he never 
 stopped playing until she looked happy. 
 
 He thought this so clever of him that he could 
 
 scarcely resist wakening her to hear her say, "Oh, 
 
 Peter, how exquisitely you play." However, as she 
 
 now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the 
 
 204 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 window. You must not think that he meditated fly- 
 ing away and never coming back. He had quite 
 decided to be his mother's boy, but hesitated about 
 beginning to-night. It was the second wish which 
 troubled him. He no longer meant to make it a 
 wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish 
 seemed wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask 
 for it without returning to the fairies. Also, if he 
 put off asking for his wish too long it might go 
 bad. He asked himself if he had not been hard- 
 hearted to fly away without saying good-bye to 
 Solomon. "I should like awfully to sail in my boat 
 just once more," he said wistfully to his sleeping 
 mother. He quite argued with her as if she could 
 hear him. "It would be so splendid to tell the birds 
 of this adventure," he said coaxingly. "I promise 
 to come back," he said solemnly and meant it, 
 too. 
 
 And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice 
 he came back from the window, wanting to kiss his 
 mother, but he feared the delight of it might 
 waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss 
 on his pipe, and then he flew back to the Gardens, 
 205 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 Many nights and even months passed before he 
 asked the fairies for his second wish ; and I am not 
 sure that I quite know why he delayed so long. 
 One reason was that he had so many good-byes to 
 say, not only to his particular friends, but to a 
 hundred favourite spots. Then he had his last sail, 
 and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and 
 so on. Again, a number of farewell feasts were 
 given in his honour; and' another comfortable 
 reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for 
 his mother would never weary of waiting for him. 
 This last reason displeased old Solomon, for it was 
 an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate. 
 Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping 
 them at their work, such as "Never put off laying 
 to-day, because you can lay to-morrow," and "In 
 this world there are no second chances," and yet 
 here was Peter gaily putting off and none the 
 worse for it. The birds pointed this out to each 
 other, and fell into lazy habits. 
 
 But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in go- 
 ing back to his mother, he was quite decided to go 
 hack. The best proof of this was his caution with 
 206 
 
LOCK-OUT TIME 
 
 the fairies. They were most anxious that he should 
 remain in the Gardens to plaj to them, and to 
 bring this to pass they tried to trick him into mak- 
 ing such a remark as "I wish the grass was not so 
 wet," and some of them danced out of time in the 
 hope that he might cry, "I do wish you would keep 
 time!" Then they would have said that this was 
 his second wish. But he smoked their design, and 
 though on occasions he began, "I wish — " he al- 
 ways stopped in time. So when at last he said to 
 them bravely, "I wish now to go back to mother 
 for ever and always," they had to tickle his shoul- 
 ders and let him go. 
 
 He went in a hurry in the end because he had 
 dreamt that his mother was crying, and he knew 
 what was the great thing she cried for, and that 
 a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make 
 her to smile. Oh, he felt sure of it, and so eager 
 was he to be nestling in her arms that this time he 
 flew straight to the window, which was always to 
 be open for him. 
 
 But the window was closed, and there were iron 
 bars on it, and peering inside he saw his mother 
 207 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 sleeping peacefully with her arm round another 
 little boy. 
 
 Peter called, "Mother! mother!" but she heard 
 him not; in vain he beat his little limbs against 
 the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to the 
 Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What 
 a glorious boy he had meant to be to her. Ah, 
 Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how 
 differently we should all act at the second chance. 
 But Solomon was right; there is no second^chance,_ 
 not for most of us. When we reach the window_it_ 
 is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up forlife. 
 
 308 
 
xvn 
 
 THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 Everybody has heard of the Little House in 
 the Kensington Gardens, which is the only house 
 in the whole world that the fairies have built for 
 hmnans. But no one has really seen it, except just 
 three or four, and they have not only seen it but 
 slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you never 
 see it. This is because it is not there when you lie 
 down, but it is there when you wake up and step 
 outside. 
 
 In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what 
 you see is not really it, but only the light in the 
 windows. You see the light after Lock-out Time. 
 David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far 
 away among the trees as we were going home from 
 the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw it the night 
 he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name 
 of his father's office. Angela Clare, who loves to 
 have a tooth extracted because then she is treated 
 to tea in a shop, saw more than one light, she saw 
 209 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 hundreds of them all together, and this must have 
 been the fairies building the house, for they build 
 it every night and always in a different part of 
 the Gardens. She thought one of the lights was 
 bigger than the others, though she was not quite 
 ■sure, for they jumped about so, and it might have 
 been another one that was bigger. But if it was 
 the same one, it was Peter Pan's light. Heaps of 
 children have seen the light, so that is nothing. 
 But Maimie Mannering was the famous one for 
 whom the house was first built. 
 
 Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and 
 it was at night that she was strange. She was four 
 years of age, and in the daytime she was the or- 
 dinary kind. She was pleased when her brother 
 Tony, who was a magnificent fellow of six, took 
 notice of her, and she looked up to him in the 
 right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was 
 flattered rather than annoyed when he shoved her 
 about. Also, when she was batting she would pause 
 though the ball was in the air to point out to you 
 that she was wearing new shoes. She was quite the 
 ordinary kind in the daytime. 
 210 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swag- 
 gerer, lost his contempt for Maimie and eyed her 
 fearfully, and no wonder, for with dark there 
 came into her face a look that I can describe only 
 as a leary look. It was also a serene look that con- 
 trasted grandly with Tony's uneasy glances. Then 
 he would make her presents of his favourite toys 
 (which he always took away from her next morn- 
 ing) and she accepted them with a disturbing smile. 
 The reason he was now become so wheedling and 
 she so mysterious was (in brief) that they knew 
 they were about to be sent to bed. It was then that 
 Maimie was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do 
 it to-night, and the mother and their coloured 
 niu*se threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled her 
 agitating smile. And by-and-by when they were 
 alone with their night-light she would start up in 
 bed crying "Hsh! what was that.!"' Tony beseeches 
 her! "It was nothing — don't, Maimie, don't!" and 
 puUs the sheet over his head. "It is coming nearer !" 
 she cries ; "Oh, look at it, Tony ! It is feeling your 
 bed with its horns — ^it is boring for you, oh, Tony, 
 oh !" and she desists not until he rushes downstairs 
 211 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 in his combinations, screeching. When they came 
 up to whip Maimie they usually found her sleeping 
 tranquilly, not shamming, you know, but really 
 sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel, 
 which seems to me to make it almost worse. 
 
 But of course it was daytime when they were in 
 the Gardens, and then Tony did most of the talk- 
 ing. You could gather from his talk that he was 
 a very brave boy, and no one was so proud of it 
 as Maimie. She would have loved to have a ticket 
 on her saying that she was his sister. And at no 
 time did she admire him more than when he told 
 her, as he often did with splendid firmness, that 
 one day he meant to remain behind in the Gardens 
 after the gates were closed. 
 
 "Oh, Tony," she would say, with awful respect, 
 "but the fairies will be so angry !" 
 
 "I daresay," replied Tony, carelessly. 
 
 "Perhaps," she said, thrilling, "Peter Pan will 
 give you a sail in his boat!" 
 
 "I shall make him," replied Tony ; no wonder she 
 was proud of him. 
 
 But they should not have talked so loudly, for 
 212 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 one day they were overheard by a fairy who had 
 been gathering skeleton leaves, from which the little 
 people weave their summer curtains, and after that 
 Tony was a marked boy. They loosened the rails 
 before he sat on them, so that down he came on the 
 back of his head ; they tripped him up by catching 
 his boot-lace and bribed the ducks to sink his boat. 
 Nearly all the nasty accidents you meet with in 
 the Gardens occur because the fairies have taken 
 an ill-will to you, and so it behoves you to be care- 
 ful what you say about them. 
 
 Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day 
 for doing things, but Tony was not that kind, and 
 when she asked him which day he was to remain 
 behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely 
 replied, "Just some day ;" he was quite vague about 
 which day except when she asked "Will it be toc 
 day.'"' and then he could always say for certain 
 that it would not be to-day. So she saw that he 
 was waiting for a real good chance. 
 
 This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens 
 were white with snow, and there was ice on the 
 Round Pbnd, not thick enough to skate on but at 
 213 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 least you could spoil it for to-morrow by flinging 
 stones, and many bright little boys and girls were 
 doing that. 
 
 When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted 
 to go straight to the pond, but their ayah said 
 they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said 
 this she glanced at the time-board to see when the 
 Gardens closed that night. It read half -past five. 
 Poor ayah ! she is the one who laughs continuously 
 because there are so many white children in the 
 world, but she was not to laugh much more that 
 day. 
 
 Well, they went up the Baby Walk and 
 back, and when they returned to the time-board 
 she was surprised to see that it now read five o'clock 
 for closing time. But she was unacquainted with 
 the tricky ways of the fairies, and so did not 
 see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they 
 had changed the hour because there was to be a ball 
 to-night. She said there was only time now to walk 
 to the top of the Hump and back, and as they 
 trotted along with her she little guessed what was 
 thrilhng their little breasts. You see the chance had 
 1141 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 come of seeing a fairy ball. Never, Tonj; felt, 
 could he hope for a better chance. 
 
 He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt 
 it for him. Her eager eyes asked the question, "Is 
 it to-day ?" and he gasped and then nodded. Maimie 
 shpped her hand into Tony's, and hers was hot, 
 but his was cold. She did a very kind thing; she 
 took off her scarf and gave it to him ! "In case you 
 should feel cold," she whispered. Her face was 
 aglow, but Tony's was very gloomy. 
 
 As they turned on the top of the Hump he whis- 
 pered to her, "I'm afraid Nurse would see me, so 
 I sha'n't be able to do it." 
 
 Maimie admired him more than ever for being 
 afraid of nothing but their ayah, when there were 
 so many unknown terrors to fear, and she said 
 aloud, "Tony, I shall race you to the gate," and 
 in a whisper, "Then you can hide," and off they 
 ran. 
 
 Tony could always outdistance her easily, but 
 
 never had she known him speed away so quickly as 
 
 now, and she was sure he hurried that he might 
 
 have more time to hide. "Brave, brave !" her doting 
 
 215 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 eyes were crying when she got a dreadful shock; 
 instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the gate ! 
 At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as 
 if all her lapful of darling treasures were suddenly 
 spilled, and then for very disdain she could not 
 sob; in a swell of protest against aU puling cowards 
 she ran to St. Govor's Well and hid in Tony's 
 stead. 
 
 When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony 
 far in front she thought her other charge was with 
 him and passed out. Twilight came on, and scores 
 and hundreds of people passed out, including the 
 last one, who always has to run for it, but Maimie 
 saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight and glued 
 them with passionate tears. When she opened them 
 something very cold ran up her legs and up her 
 arms and dropped into her heart. It was the still- 
 ness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then 
 from another part clang, then clang, clang far 
 away. It was the Closing of the Gates. 
 
 Immediately the last clang had died away 
 Maimie distinctly heard a voice say, "So that's all 
 right." It had a wooden sound and seemed to come 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 from above, and she looked up In time to see an elm 
 tree stretching out its arms and yawning. 
 
 She was about to say, "I never knew you could 
 speak !" when a metallic voice that seemed to come 
 from the ladle at the well remarked to the elm, "I 
 suppose it is a bit coldish up there?" and the elm 
 replied, "Not particularly, but you do get numb 
 standing so long on one leg," and he flapped his 
 arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they 
 drive off. Maimie was quite surprised to see that a 
 number of other tall trees were doing the same sort 
 of thing, and she stole away to the Baby Walk and 
 crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which 
 shrugged its shoulders but did not seem to mind 
 her. 
 
 She was not in the least cold. She was wearing 
 a russet-coloured pelisse and had the hood over her 
 head, so that nothing of her showed except 
 her dear little face and her curls. The rest of her 
 real self was hidden far away inside so many warm 
 garments that in shape she seemed rather like a 
 ball. She was about forty round the waist. 
 
 There was a good deal going on in the Baby 
 S17 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Walk, when Maimie arrived in time to see a mag- 
 nolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and 
 set off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort 
 of way certainly, but that was because they used 
 crutches. An elderberry hobbled across the walk, 
 and stood chatting with some young quinces, and 
 they all had crutches. The crutches were the sticks 
 that are tied to young trees and shrubs. They were 
 quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never 
 known what they were for until to-night. 
 
 She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. 
 He was a street boy fairy who was running up the 
 walk closing the weeping trees. The way he did it 
 was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they 
 shut like umbrellas, deluging the little plants be- 
 neath with snow. "Oh, you naughty, naughty 
 child!" Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew 
 what it was to have a dripping umbrella about your 
 ears. 
 
 Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of 
 
 earshot, but the chrysanthemums heard her, and 
 
 they aU said so pointedly "Hoity-toity, what is 
 
 this.'"' that she had to come out and show herself. 
 
 218 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 Then the whole vegetable kingdom was rather puz- 
 zled what to do. 
 
 "Of course it is no affair of ours," a spindle 
 tree said after they had whispered together, "but 
 you know quite well you ought not to be here, and 
 perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; 
 what do you think yourself?" 
 
 "I think you should not," Maimie replied, which 
 so perplexed them that they said petulantly there 
 was no arguing with her. "I wouldn't ask it of 
 you," she assured them, "if I thought it was 
 wrong," and of course after this they could not well 
 carry tales. They then said, "Well-a-day," and 
 "Such is hfe!" for they can be frightfully sarcas- 
 tic, but she felt sorry for those of them who had no 
 crutches, and she said good-naturedly, "Before 
 I go to the fairies' ball, I should like to take you 
 for a walk one at a time ; you can lean on me, you 
 know." 
 
 At this they clapped their hands, and she es- 
 corted them up to the Baby Walk and back again, 
 one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round 
 the very frail, setting their leg right when it got 
 219 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 too ridiculous, and treating the foreign ones quite 
 as courteously as the English, though she could 
 not understand a word they said. 
 
 They behaved well on the whole, though some 
 whimpered that she had not taken them as 
 far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and 
 others jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, 
 and she was too much of a lady to cry out. So much 
 walking tired her and she was anxious to be off to 
 the ball, but she no longer felt afraid. The reason 
 she felt no more fear was that it was now night- 
 time, and in the dark, you remember, Maimie was 
 always rather strange. 
 
 They were now loath to let her go, for, "If the 
 fairies see you," they warned her, "they will mis- 
 chief you, stab you to death or compel you to nurse 
 their children or turn you into something tedious, 
 like an evergreen oak." As they said this they; 
 looked with affected pity at an evergreen oat, 
 for in winter they are very envious of the ever- 
 greens. 
 
 "Oh, la!" replied the oak bitingly, "Kqiw 'de- 
 liciously cosy it is to stand here buttoned to the 
 220 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 neck and watch you poor naked creatures shiver- 
 ing!" 
 
 This made them sulky though they had really 
 brought it on themselves, and they drew for Mai- 
 mie a very gloomy picture of the perils that faced 
 her if she insisted on going to the ball. 
 
 She learned from a purple filbert that the court 
 was not in its usual good temper at present, the 
 cause being the tantalising heart of the Duke of 
 Christmas Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy, very 
 poorly of a dreadful complaint, namely, inabihty 
 to love, and though he had tried many ladies in 
 many lands he could not fall in love with one of 
 them. Queen Mab, who rules in the Gardens, had 
 been confident that her girls would bewitch him, 
 but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained cold. 
 This rather irritating doctor, who was his private 
 physician, felt the Duke's heart immediately after 
 any lady was presented, and then always shook his 
 bald head and murmured, "Cold, quite cold !" Nat- 
 urally Queen Mab felt disgraced, and first she tried 
 the effect of ordering the court into tears for nine 
 minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and de- 
 221 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 creed that they should wear fools' caps until they 
 thawed the Duke's frozen heart. 
 
 "How I should love to see the Cupids in their 
 dear little fools' caps !" Maimie cried, and away she 
 ran to look for them very recklessly, for the Cupids 
 hate to be laughed at. 
 
 It is always easy to discover where a fairies' ball 
 is being held, as ribbons are stretched between it 
 and all the populous parts of the Gardens, on which 
 those invited may walk to the dance without wetting 
 their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and 
 looked very pretty on the snow. 
 
 Maimie walked alongside one of them for some 
 distance without meeting anybody, but at last she 
 saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her sur- 
 prise they seemed to be returning from the ball, 
 and she had just time to hide from them by bending 
 her knees and holding out her arms and pretending 
 to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in 
 front and six behind, in the middle walked a prim 
 lady wearing a long train held up by two pages, 
 and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a 
 lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies 
 222 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 travel about. She was dressed in golden rain, but 
 the most enviable part of her was her neck, which 
 was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of 
 course showed off her diamond necklace as no white 
 throat could have glorified it. The high-born fai- 
 ries obtain this admired effect by pricking their 
 skin, which lets the blue blood come through and 
 dye them, and you cannot imagine anything so 
 dazzling unless you have seen the ladies' busts in 
 the jewellers' windows. 
 
 Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade 
 seemed to be in a passion, tilting their noses higher 
 than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt them, 
 and she concluded that this must be another 
 case in which the doctor had said "Cold, quite 
 cold!" 
 
 Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where 
 It became a bridge over a dry puddle into which 
 another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb 
 out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, 
 who most kindly went to her aid, but soon she sat 
 in her hand chatting gaily and explaining that her 
 name was Brownie, and that though only a, poor 
 223 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 street singer she was on her way to the ball to see 
 if the Duke would have her. 
 
 "Of course," she said, "I am rather plain," and 
 this made Maimie uncomfortable, for indeed the 
 simple httle creature was almost quite plain for a 
 fairy. 
 
 It was difficult to know what to reply. 
 
 "I see you think I have no chance," Brownie 
 said falteringly. 
 
 "I don't say that," Maimie answered politely, 
 "of course your face is just a tiny bit homely, 
 but — " Really it was quite awkward for her. 
 
 Fortunately she remembered about her father 
 and the bazaar. He had gone to a fashionable 
 bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in Lon- 
 don were on view for half-a-crown the second day, 
 but on his return home instead of being dissatisfied 
 with Maimie's mother he had said, "You can't 
 think, my dear, what a relief it is to see a homely 
 face again." 
 
 Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified 
 Brownie tremendously, indeed she had no longer 
 the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose 
 224 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 her. So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling 
 out to Maimie not to follow lest the Queen should 
 mischief her. 
 
 But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and 
 presently at the seven Spanish chestnuts, she saw 
 a wonderful Hght. She crept forward until she 
 was quite near it, and then she peeped from be- 
 hind a tree. 
 
 The hght, which was as high as your head above 
 the ground, was composed of myriads of glow- 
 worms all holding on to each other, and so form- 
 ing a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There 
 were thousands of little people looking on, but they 
 were in shadow and drab in colour compared to 
 the glorious creatures within that luminous circle 
 who were so bewUderingly bright that Maimie had 
 to wink hard all the time she looked at them. 
 
 It was amazing and even irritating to her that 
 the Duke of Christmas Daisies should be able to 
 keep out of love for a moment : yet out of love his 
 dusky grace still was: you could see it by the 
 shamed looks of the Queen and court (though they 
 pretended not to care), by the way darling ladies 
 225 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 brought forward for his approval burst into tears 
 as they were told to pass on, and by his own most 
 dreary face. 
 
 Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feel- 
 ing the Duke's heart and hear him give utterance 
 to his parrot cry, and she was particularly sorry 
 for the Cupids, who stood in their fools' caps in 
 obscure places and, every time they heard that 
 "Cold, quite cold," bowed their disgraced little 
 heads. 
 
 She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and 
 I may as well tell you now why he was so late that 
 night. It was because his boat had got wedged on 
 the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, 
 through which he had to break a perilous passage 
 with his trusty paddle. 
 
 The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for 
 they could not dance, so heavy were their hearts. 
 They forget all the steps when they are sad and 
 remember them again when they are merry. David 
 tells me that fairies never say "We feel happy": 
 what they say is, "We feel dancey." 
 
 Well, they were looking very undancey indeed, 
 226 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 when sudden laughter broke out among the on- 
 lookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived 
 and was insisting on her right to be presented to 
 the Duke. 
 
 Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her 
 friend fared, though she had really no hope; no 
 one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie 
 herself, who, however, was absolutely confident. 
 She was led before his grace, and the doctor put- 
 ting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart, which 
 for convenience sake was reached by a little trap- 
 door in his diamond shirt, had begun to say me- 
 chanically, "Cold, qui — ," when he stopped 
 abruptly. 
 
 "What's this?" he cried, and first he shook the 
 heart like a watch, and then put his ear to it. 
 
 "Bless my soul!" cried the doctor, and by this 
 time of course the excitement among the spectators 
 was tremendous, fairies fainting right and left. 
 
 Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who 
 
 was very much startled and looked as if he would 
 
 like to run away. "Good gracious me !" the doctor 
 
 was heard muttering, and now the heart was evi- 
 
 227 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 dently on fire, for he had to jerk his fingers awajj 
 from it and put them in his mouth. 
 
 The suspense was awful! 
 
 Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, "My Lord 
 Duke," said the physician elatedly, "I have the 
 honour to inform your excellency that your grace 
 is in love." 
 
 You can't conceive the effect of it. Brownie held 
 out her arms to the Duke and he flung himself into 
 them, the Queen leapt into the arms of the Lord 
 Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into 
 the arms of her gentlemen, for it is etiquette to 
 f oUow her example in everything. Thus in a single 
 moment about fifty marriages took place, for if 
 you leap into each other's arms it is a fairy wed- 
 ding. Of course a clergyman has to be present. 
 
 How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trmnpets 
 brayed, the moon came out, and Immediately a 
 thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they 
 were ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild 
 abandon round the fairy ring. Most gladsome 
 sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools' 
 caps from their heads and cast them high in the 
 228 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 air. And then Maimie went and spoiled everything. 
 She couldn't help it. She was crazy with delight 
 over her little friend's good fortune, so she took 
 several steps forward and cried in an ecstasy, "Oh, 
 Brownie, how splendid!" 
 
 Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the 
 lights went out, and all in the time you may take 
 to say "Oh dear !" An awful sense of her peril came 
 upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she 
 was a lost child in a place where no human must 
 be between the locking and the opening of the 
 gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multi- 
 tude, she saw a thousand swords flashing for her 
 blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled. 
 
 How she ran! and aU the time her eyes were 
 starting out of her head. Many times she lay down, 
 and then quickly jumped up and ran on again. 
 Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that 
 she no longer knew she was in the Gardens. The 
 one thing she was sure of was that she must never 
 cease to run, and she thought she was still running 
 long after she had dropped in the Figs and gone 
 to sleep. She thought the snowflakes faUing on her 
 229 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 face were her mother kissing her good-night. She 
 thought her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, 
 and tried to pull it over her head. And when she 
 heard talking through her dreams she thought it 
 was mother bringing father to the nursery door 
 to look at her a^ she slept. But it was the fairies. 
 
 .1 am very glad to be able to say that they no 
 longer desired to mischief her. When she rushed 
 away they had rent the air with such cries as "Slay 
 her !" "Turn her into something extremely unpleas- 
 ant !" and so on, but the pursuit was delayed while 
 they discussed who should march in front, and this 
 gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before 
 the Queen and demand a boon. 
 
 Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she 
 asked for was Maimie's life. "Anything except 
 that," replied Queen Mab sternly, and aU the 
 fairies chanted "Anything except that." But when 
 they learned how Maimie had befriended Brownie 
 and so enabled her to attend the ball to their great 
 glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the 
 httle human, and set oflF, like an army, to thank 
 her, the court advancing in front and the canopy 
 230 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily 
 by her footprints in the snow. 
 
 But though they found her deep in snow in the 
 Figs, it seemed impossible to thank Maimie, for 
 they could not waken her. They went through the 
 form of thanking her, that is to say, the new King 
 stood on her body and read her a long address 
 of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They 
 also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was cov- 
 ered again, and they saw she was in danger of 
 perishing of cold. 
 
 "Turn her into something that does not mind 
 the cold," seemed a good suggestion of the doc- 
 tor's, but the only thing they could think of that 
 does not mind cold was a snowflake. "And it might 
 melt," the Queen pointed out, so that idea had to 
 be given up. 
 
 A magnificent attempt was made to carry her 
 to a sheltered spot, but though there were so many 
 of them she was too heavy. By this time all the 
 ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but pres- 
 ently the Cupids had a lovely idea. "Build a house 
 round her," they cried, and at once everybody per- 
 231 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 ceived that this was the thing to do ; in a moment 
 a hundred fairy sawyers were among the branches, 
 architects were running round Maimie, measuring 
 her; a bricklayer's yard sprang up at her feet, 
 seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation 
 stone and the Queen laid it, overseers were ap- 
 pointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings were run 
 up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels 
 and turning lathes, and by this time the roof was 
 on and the glaziers were putting in the windows. 
 
 The house was exactly the si2e of Maimie and 
 perfectly lovely. One of her arms was extended 
 and this had bothered them for a second, but they 
 built a verandah round it, leading to the front 
 door. The windows were the size of a coloured pict- 
 ure-book and the door rather smaller, but it would 
 be easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. 
 The fairies, as is their custom, clapped their hands 
 with delight over their cleverness, and they were 
 all so madly in love with the little house that they 
 cotild not bear to think they had finished it. So 
 they gave it ever so many little extra touches, and 
 even then tiiey added more extra touches. 
 S32 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 For Instance, two of them ran up a ladder and 
 put on a chimney. 
 
 "Now we fear it is quite finished," they sighed. 
 
 But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and 
 tied some smoke to the chimney. 
 
 "That certainly finishes it," they cried reluct- 
 antly. 
 
 "Not at aU," cried a glow-worm, "if she were to 
 wake without seeing a night-light she might be 
 frightened, so I shall be her night-light." 
 
 "Wait one moment," said a china merchant, 
 "and I shall make you a saucer." 
 
 Now alas, it was absolutely finished. 
 
 Oh, dear no! 
 
 "Gracious me," cried a brass manufacturer, 
 "there's no handle on the door," and he put one on. 
 
 An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady 
 ran up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with 
 a water-butt, and the painters insisted on paint- 
 ing it. 
 
 Finished at last! 
 
 "Finished ! how can it be finished," the plumber 
 demanded scornfully, "before hot and cold are put 
 233 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 in?" and he put in hot and cold. Then an army 
 of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades 
 and seeds and bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon 
 they had a flower garden to the right of the veran- 
 dah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses 
 and clematis on the walls of the house, and in less 
 time than five minutes all these dear things were 
 in full bloom. 
 
 Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But 
 it was at last finished true as true, and they had 
 to leave it and return to the dance. They aU kissed 
 their hands to it as they went away, and the last 
 to go was Brownie. She stayed a moment behind 
 the others to drop a pleasant dream down the 
 chimney. 
 
 AU through the night the exquisite little house 
 stood there in the Figs taking care of Maimie, 
 and she never knew. She slept until the dream was 
 quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy 
 just as morning was breaking from its egg, and 
 then she almost fell asleep again, and then she 
 called out, "Tony," for she thought she was at 
 home in the nursery. As Tony made no answer, 
 ZS4, 
 
THE LITTLE HOUSE 
 
 she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and 
 it opened like the lid of a box, and to her bewil- 
 derment she saw all around her the Kensington 
 Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the 
 nursery she wondered whether this was really her- 
 self, so she pinched her cheeks, and then she knew 
 it was herself, and this reminded her that she was 
 in the middle of a great adventure. She remem- 
 bered now everything that had happened to her 
 from the closing of the gates up to her running 
 away from the fairies, but however, she asked 
 herself, had she got into this funny place? She 
 stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, 
 and then she saw the dear house in which she had 
 passed the night. It so entranced her that she could 
 think of nothing else. 
 
 "Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love !" 
 she cried. 
 
 Perhaps a human voice frightened the little 
 house, or maybe it now knew that its work was 
 done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it 
 began to grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that 
 she could scarce believe it was shrinking, yet she 
 235 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 soon knew that it could not contain her now. It 
 always remained as complete as ever, but it became 
 smaller and smaller, and the garden dwindled at 
 the same time, and the snow crept closer, lapping 
 house and garden up. Now the house was the size 
 of a little dog's kennel, and now of a Noah's Ark, 
 but still you could see the smoke and the door- 
 handle and the roses on the wall, every one com- 
 plete. The glow-worm light was waning too, but 
 it was still there. "Darling, loveUest, don't go!" 
 Maimie cried, falling on her knees, for the little 
 house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still 
 quite complete. But as she stretched out her arms 
 imploringly the snow crept up on all sides until 
 it met itself, and where the little house had been 
 was now one unbroken expanse of snow, 
 
 Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was 
 putting her fingers to her eyes, when she heard a 
 kind voice say, "Don't cry, pretty human, don't 
 cry," and then she turned round and saw a beauti- 
 ful little naked boy regarding her wistfully. She 
 knew at once that he must be Peter Pan. 
 
 236 
 
xvin 
 
 TEU'S GO 
 
 3xAIMIE felt quite shy, but Peter knew not what 
 shy was. 
 
 "I hope you have had a good night," he said 
 earnestly. 
 
 "Thank you," she repHed, "I was so cosy and 
 warm. But you" — and she looked at his nakedness 
 awkwardly — " don't you feel the least bit cold?" 
 
 Now cold was another word Peter had forgotten, 
 so he answered, "I think not, but I may be wrong : 
 you see I am rather ignorant. I am not exactly a 
 boy, Solomon says I am a Betwixt-and-Between." 
 
 "So that is what it is called," said Maimie 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "That's not my name," he explained, "my name 
 is Peter Pan." 
 
 "Yes, of course," she said, "I know, everybody 
 knows." 
 
 lYou can't think how pleased Peter was to leam 
 SS7 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 that all the people outside the gates knew about 
 him. He begged Maimie to tell him what they knew 
 and what they said, and she did so. They were 
 sitting by this time on a fallen tree; Peter had 
 cleared oiF the snow for Maimie, but he sat on a 
 snowy bit himself. 
 
 "Squeeze closer," Maimie said. 
 
 "What is that.?" he asked, and she showed him, 
 and then he did it. They talked together and he 
 found that people knew a great deal about him, 
 but not everjrthing, not that he had gone back to 
 his niother and been barred out, for instance, and 
 he said nothing of this to Maimie, for it still hu- 
 miliated him. 
 
 "Do they know that I play games exactly like 
 real boys.?" he asked very proudly. "Oh, Maimie, 
 please teU them!" But when he revealed how he 
 played, by sailing his hoop on the Round Pond, 
 and so on, she was simply horrified. 
 
 "All your ways of playing," she said with her 
 big eyes on him, "are quite, quite wrong, and not 
 in the least like how boys play !" 
 
 Poor Peter uttered a little moan at this, and he 
 238 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 cried for *;he first time for I know not how long. 
 Maimie was extremely sorry for him, and lent him 
 her handkerchief, but he didn't know in the least 
 what to do with it, so she showed him, that is to 
 say, she wiped her eyes, and then gave it back to 
 him, saying "Now you do it," but instead of wip- 
 ing his own eyes he wiped hers, and she thought 
 it best to pretend that this was what she had 
 meant. 
 
 She said, out of pity for him, "I shall give you 
 a kiss if you like," but though he once knew he 
 had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, 
 " Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking 
 she had offered to put something into it. This was 
 a great shock to her, but she felt she could not 
 explain without shaming him, so with charming 
 delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened 
 to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a 
 kiss. Poor little boy ! he quite believed her, and to 
 this day he wears it on his finger, though there 
 can be scarcely anyone who needs a thimble so 
 little. You see, though still a tiny child, it was 
 really years and years since he had seen his mother, 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 and I daresay the baby who had supplanted him 
 was now a man with whiskers. 
 
 But you must not think that Peter Pan was a 
 boy to pity rather than to admire; if Maimie be- 
 gan by thinking this, she soon found she was very 
 much mistaken. Her eyes glistened with admiration 
 when he told her of his adventures, especially of 
 how he went to and fro between the island and the 
 Gardens in the Thrush's Nest. 
 
 " How romantic," Maimie exclaimed, but it was 
 another unknown word, and he hung his head 
 thinking she was despising him. 
 
 "I suppose Tony would not have done that?" 
 he said very humbly. 
 
 "Never, never!" she answered with conviction, 
 "he would have been afraid." 
 
 "What is afraid.''" asked Peter longingly. He 
 thought it must be some splendid thing. "I do wish 
 you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie," 
 he said. 
 
 "I believe no one could teach that to you," she 
 answered adoringly, but Peter thought she meant 
 that he was stupid. She had told him about Tony 
 240 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 and of the wicked thing she did in the dark to 
 frighten him (she knew quite well that it was 
 wicked), but Peter misunderstood her meaning and 
 said, "Oh, how I wish I was as brave as Tony." 
 
 It quite irritated her. "You are twenty thousand 
 times braver than Tony," she said, "you are ever 
 so much the bravest boy I ever knew !" 
 
 He could scarcely beHeve she meant it, but when 
 he did believe he screamed with joy. 
 
 "And if you want very much to give me a kiss," 
 Maimie said, "you can do it." 
 
 Very reluctantly Peter began to take the thimble 
 off his finger. He thought she wanted it back. 
 
 "I don't mean a kiss," she said hurriedly, "I 
 mean a thimble." 
 
 "What's that.?" Peter asked. 
 
 "It's like this," she said, and kissed him. 
 
 "I should love to give you a thimble," Peter said 
 gravely, so he gave her one. He gave her quite a 
 nimiber of thimbles, and then a delightful Idea 
 came into his head! "Maimie," he said, "will you 
 marry me.'"' 
 
 Now, strange to tell, the same Idea had come at 
 241 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 exactly the same time into Maimie's head. "I should 
 like to," she answered, "but will there be room in 
 your boat for two?" 
 
 "If you squeeze close," he said eagerly. 
 
 "Perhaps the birds would be angry?" 
 
 He assured her that the birds would love to have 
 her, though I am not so certain of it myself. Also 
 that there were very few birds iiji winter. "Of course 
 they might want your clotiies," he had to admit 
 rather falteringly. 
 
 She was somewhat indignant at this. 
 
 "They are always thinking of their nests," he 
 said apologetically, "and there are some bits of 
 you" — ^he stroked the fur on her pelisse — "that 
 would excite them very much." 
 
 "They sha'n't have my fur," she said sharply. 
 
 "No," he said, still fondling it, however, "no! 
 Oh, Maimie," he said rapturously, "do you know 
 why I love you? It is because you are like a beau- 
 tiful nest." 
 
 Somehow this made her uneasy. "I think you 
 are speaking more like a bird than a boy now," 
 she said, holding back, and indeed he was even 
 24S 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 looking rather like a bird. "After all," she said, 
 "you are only a Betwixt-and-Between." But it hurt 
 him so much that she immediately added, "It must 
 be a delicious thing to be." 
 
 "Come and be one then, dear Maimie," he im- 
 plored her, and they set off for the boat, for it was 
 now very near Open-Gate time. "And you are not 
 a bit like a nest," he whispered to please her. 
 
 "But I think it is rather nice to be like one," she 
 said in a woman's contradictory way. "And, Peter, 
 dear, though I can't give them my fur, I wouldn't 
 mind their building in it. Fancy a nest in my neck 
 with little spotty eggs in it! Oh, Peter, how per- 
 fectly lovely !" 
 
 But as they drew near the Serpentine, she shiv- 
 ered a little, and said, "Of course I shall go and see 
 mother often, quite often. It is not as if I was say- 
 ing good-bye for ever to mother, it is not in the 
 least like that." 
 
 "Oh, no," answered Peter, but in his heart he 
 
 knew it was very like that, and he would have told 
 
 her so had he not been in a quaking fear of losing 
 
 her. He was so fond of her, he felt he could not live 
 
 243 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 without her. "She will forget her mother in time, 
 and be happy with me," he kept saying to himself, 
 and he hurried her on, giving her thimbles by the 
 way. 
 
 But even when she had seen the boat and ex- 
 claimed ecstatically over its loveUness, she still 
 talked tremblingly about her mother. "You know 
 quite well, Peter, don't you," she said, "that I 
 wouldn't come unless I knew for certain I could go 
 back to mother whenever I want to? Peter, say it!" 
 
 He said it, but he could no longer look her in the 
 face, 
 
 "If you are sure your mother will always want 
 you," he added rather sourly. 
 
 "The idea of mother's not always wanting me!" 
 Maimie cried, and her face glistened. 
 
 "If she doesn't bar you out," said Peter huskily. 
 
 "The door," repHed Maimie, "will always, always 
 be open, and mother will always be waiting at it 
 for me." 
 
 "Then," said Peter, not without grimness, "step 
 in, if you feel so sure of her," and he helped Maimie 
 into the Thrush,'s Nest. 
 
 244 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 "But why don't you look at me?" she asked, tak- 
 ing him by the arm. 
 
 Peter tried hard not to look, he tried to push off, 
 then he gave a great gulp and jumped ashore and 
 sat down miserably in the snow. 
 
 She went to him. "What is it, dear, dear Peter?" 
 she said, wondering. 
 
 "Oh, Maimie," he cried, "it isn't fair to take you 
 with me if you think you can go back. Your 
 mother" — ^he gulped again — "you don't know them 
 as well as I do." 
 
 And then he told her the woful story of how 
 he had been barred out, and she gasped aU the time. 
 "But my mother," she said, "my mother" 
 
 "Yes, she would," said Peter, "they are all the 
 same. I daresay she is looking for another one 
 already." 
 
 Maimie said aghast, "I can't believe it. You see, 
 when you went away your mother had none, but 
 my mother has Tony, and surely they are satisfied 
 when they have one," 
 
 Peter replied bitterly, "You should see the let- 
 ters Solomon gets from ladies who have six." 
 245 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Just then they heard a grating creak, followed 
 by creak, creak, all round the Gardens. It was the 
 Opening of the Gates, and Peter jumped nervously 
 into his boat. He knew Maimie would not come with 
 him now, and he was trying bravely not to cry. 
 But Maimie was sobbing painfully. 
 
 "If I should be too late," she called in agony, 
 "oh, Peter, if she has got another one already !" 
 
 Again he sprang ashore as if she had called him 
 back. "I shall come and look for you to-night," he 
 said, squeezing close, "but if you hurry away I 
 think you will be in time." 
 
 Then he pressed a last thimble on her sweet little 
 mouth, and covered his face with his hands so that 
 he might not see her go. 
 
 "Dear Peter!" she cried. 
 
 "Dear Maimie !" cried the tra^c boy. 
 
 She leapt into his arms, so that it was a sort of 
 fairy wedding, and then she hurried away. Oh, how 
 she hastened to the gates ! Peter, you may be sure, 
 was back in the Gardens that night as soon as Lock- 
 out sounded, but he found no Maimie, and so he 
 knew she had been in time. For long he hoped that 
 246 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 some night she would come back to him; often he 
 thought he saw her waiting for him by the shore of 
 the Serpentine as his bark drew to land, but 
 Maimie never went back. She wanted to, but she was 
 afraid that if she saw her dear Betwixt-and- 
 Between again she would linger with him too long, 
 and besides the ayah now kept a sharp eye on her. 
 But she often talked lovingly of Peter and she 
 knitted a kettle-holder for him, and one day when 
 she was wondering what Easter present he would 
 like, her mother made a suggestion. 
 
 "Nothing," she said thoughtfully, "would be 
 so useful to him as a goat." 
 
 "He could ride on it," cried Maimie, "and play 
 on his pipe at the same time !" 
 
 "Then," her mother asked, "won't you give him 
 your goat, the one you frighten Tony with at 
 night?" 
 
 "But it isn't a real goat," Maimie said. 
 
 "It seems very real to Tony," replied her mother. 
 
 "It seems frightfully real to me too," Maimie 
 admitted, "but how could I give it to Peter?" 
 
 Her 'mother knew a way, and next day, accom- 
 247 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 panied by Tony (who was really quite a nice boy, 
 though of course he could not compare), they went 
 to the Gardens, and Maimie stood alone within a 
 fairy ring, and then her mother, who was a rather 
 gifted lady, said, 
 
 " My daughter, tell me, if yon can. 
 What have you got for Peter Pan f " 
 
 To which Maimie replied, 
 
 " / have a goat for him to ride. 
 Observe me cast it far and rvide." 
 
 She then flung her arms about as if she were sow- 
 ing seed, and turned round three times. 
 Next Tony said, 
 
 " If P. doth find it waiting here, 
 Wilt ne'er again make me to fear f " 
 
 And Maimie answered, 
 
 " By dark or light I fondly swear 
 Never to see goats anywhere." 
 
 She also left a letter to Peter in a likely place, 
 explaining what she had done, and begging him to 
 
 248 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 adc Uie fairies to turn the goat into one convenient 
 for riding on. Well, it all happened just as she 
 hoped, for Peter found the letter, and of course 
 nothing could be easier for the fairies than to turn 
 the goat into a real one, and so that is how Peter 
 got the goat on which he now rides round the 
 Gardens every night playing sublimely on his 
 pipe. And Maimie kept her promise and never 
 frightened Tony with a goat again, though I 
 have heard that she created another animal. 
 Until she was quite a big girl she continued 
 to leave presents for Peter in the Gardens (with 
 letters explaining how humans play with them), 
 and she is not the only one who has done this. 
 David does it, for instance, and he and I know 
 the likehest place for leaving them in, and we shall 
 tell you if you like, but for mercy's sake don't ask 
 us before Porthos, for were he to find out the place 
 he would take every one of them. 
 
 Though Peter still remembers Maimie he is be- 
 come as gay as ever, and often in sheer happiness 
 he jumps off his goat and lies kicking merrily on 
 the grass. Oh, he has a joyful time ! But he has still 
 249 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 a vague memory that he was a human once, and it 
 makes him especially kind to the house-swallows 
 when they revisit the island, for house-swallows are 
 the spirits of little children who have died. They 
 always build in the eaves of the houses where they 
 lived when they were humans, and sometimes they 
 try to fly in at a nursery window, and per- 
 haps that is why Peter loves them best of all the 
 birds. 
 
 And the little house? Every lawful night (that 
 is to say, every night except ball nights) the fairies 
 now build the little house lest there should be a 
 human child lost in the Gardens, and Peter rides 
 the marshes looking for lost ones, and if he finds 
 them he carries them on his goat to the little house, 
 and when they wake up they are in it and when 
 they step out they see it. The fairies build the house 
 merely because it is so pretty, but Peter rides round 
 in memory of Maimie and because he stiU loves 
 to do just as he believes real boys would do. 
 
 But you must not think that, because somewhere 
 among the trees the little house is twinkling, it is 
 a safe thing to remain in the Gardens after Lock- 
 250 
 
PETER'S GOAT 
 
 out Time. If the bad ones among the fairies hap- 
 pen to be out that night they will certainly mischief 
 you, and even though they are not, you may perish 
 of cold and dark before Peter Pan comes round. 
 He has been too late several times, and when he sees 
 he is too late he runs back to the Thrush's Nest 
 for his paddle, of which Maimie had told him the 
 true use, and he digs a grave for the child and 
 erects a little tombstone and carves the poor thing's 
 initials on it. He does this at once because he thinks 
 it is what real boys would do, and you must have 
 noticed the little stones and that there are always 
 two together. He puts them in twos because it seems 
 less lonely. I think that quite the most touching 
 sight in the Gardens is the two tombstones of Wal- 
 ter Stephen Matthews and Phoebe Phelps. They 
 stand together at the spot where the parishes of 
 Westminster St. Mary's is said to meet the parish 
 of Paddington. Here Peter found the two babes, 
 who had fallen unnoticed from their perambulators, 
 Phoebe aged thirteen months and Walter probably 
 still younger, for Peter seems to have felt a deli- 
 cacy about putting any age on his stone. They 
 251 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 lie side by side, and the simple inscriptions read 
 
 and 
 
 David sometimes places white flowers on these two 
 innocent graves. 
 
 But how strange for parents, when they hurry 
 into the Gardens at the opening of the gates look- 
 ing for their lost one, to find the sweetest little 
 tombstone instead. I do hope that Peter is not 
 too ready with his spade. It is all rather sad. 
 
 S5Z 
 
XIX 
 
 AN INTERLOFEK 
 
 JJAVID and I had a tremendous adventure. It 
 was this, he passed the night with me. We had 
 often talked of it as a possible thing, and at last 
 Mary consented to our having it. 
 
 The adventure began with David's coming to 
 me at the unwonted hour of six p.m., carrying what 
 looked like a packet of sandwiches, but proved to 
 be his requisites for the night done up in a neat 
 paper parcel. We were both so excited that, at the 
 moment of greeting, neither of us could be ap- 
 posite to the occasion In words, so we communi- 
 cated our feelings by signs; as thus, David half 
 sat down in a place where there was no chair, which 
 is his favourite preparation for being emphatic, 
 and is borrowed, I think, from the frogs, and we 
 then made the extraordinary faces which mean, 
 "What a tremendous adventure!" 
 
 We were to do all the Important things precisely 
 253 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 as they are done every evening at his own home, 
 and so I am in a puzzle to know how it was such 
 an adventure to David. But I have now said 
 enough to show you what an adventure it was to 
 me. 
 
 For a little while we played with my two medals, 
 and, with the delicacy of a sleeping companion, 
 David abstained on this occasion from asking why 
 one of them was not a Victoria Cross. He is very 
 troubled because I never won the Victoria Cross, 
 for it lowers his status in the Gardens. He never 
 says in the Gardens that I won it, but he fights 
 any boy of his year who says I didn't. Their fight- 
 ing consists of challenging each other. 
 
 At twenty-five past six I turned on the hot 
 water in the bath, and covertly swallowed a small 
 glass of brandy. I then said, "Half -past six ; time 
 for little boys to be in bed." I said it in the matter- 
 of-fact voice of one made free of the company of 
 parents, as if I had said it often before, and would 
 have to say it often again, and as if there was 
 nothing particularly delicious to me in hearing 
 myself say it. I tried to say it in that way. 
 254 
 
AN INTERLOPER 
 
 And David was deceived. To my exceeding joy 
 he stamped his Uttle foot, and was so naughty that, 
 in gratitude, I gave him five minutes with a match- 
 box. Matches, which he drops on the floor when 
 lighted, are the greatest treat you can give David ; 
 indeed, I think his private heaven is a place with 
 a roaring bonfire. 
 
 Then I placed my hand carelessly on his shoul- 
 der, Hke one a trifle bored by the dull routine of 
 putting my httle boys to bed, and conducted him 
 to the night nursery, which had lately been my 
 private chamber. There was an extra bed in it to- 
 night, very near my own, but differently shaped, 
 and scarcely less conspicuous was the new mantel- 
 shelf ornament: a tumbler of milk, with a biscuit 
 on top of it, and a chocolate riding on the biscuit. 
 To enter the room without seeing the tumbler at 
 once was impossible. I had tried it several times, 
 and David saw and promptly did his frog busi- 
 ness, the while, with an indescribable emotion, I 
 produced a night-hght from my pocket and 
 planted it in a saucer on the wash-stand. 
 
 David watched my preparations with distaste- 
 255 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 ful levity, but anon made a noble amend by abrupt- 
 ly offering me his foot as if he had no longer use 
 for it, and I knew by intuition that he expected 
 me to take off his boots. I took them off with all 
 the coolness of an old hand, and then I placed him 
 on my knee and removed his blouse. This was a 
 delightful experience, but I think I remained won- 
 derfully calm until I came somewhat too suddenly 
 to his little braces, which agitated me profoundly. 
 
 I cannot proceed in pubhc with the disrobing of 
 David. 
 
 Soon the night nursery was in darkness, but for 
 the glimmer from the night-light, and very still 
 save when the door creaked as a man peered in at 
 the little figure on the bed. However softly I 
 opened the door, an inch at a time, his bright eyes 
 turned to me at once, and he always made the face 
 which means, "What a tremendous adventure!" 
 
 "Are you never to fall asleep, David.'"' I always 
 said. 
 
 "When are you coming to bed.'"' he always re- 
 plied, very brave but in a whisper, as if he feared 
 the bears and wolves might have him. When little 
 Z56 
 
AN INTERLOPER 
 
 boys are in bed there is nothing between them and 
 bears and wolves but the night-light. 
 
 I returned to my chair to think, and at last he 
 fell asleep with his face to the wall, but even then 
 I stood many times at the door, listening. 
 
 Long after I had gone to bed a sudden silence 
 filled the chamber, and I knew that David had 
 awaked. I lay motionless, and, after what seemed 
 a long time of waiting, a little far-away voice said 
 in a cautious whisper, "Irene!" 
 
 "You are sleeping with me to-night, you know, 
 David," I said. 
 
 "I didn't know," he replied, a little troubled but 
 trying not to be a n\iisance. 
 
 "You remember you are with me?" I asked. 
 
 After a moment's hesitation he replied, "I near- 
 ly remember," and presently he added very grate- 
 fully, as if to some angel who had whispered to 
 him, "I remember now." 
 
 I think he had nigh fallen asleep again when 
 he stirred and said, "Is it going on now?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "The adventure." 
 
 257 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "Yes, David." 
 
 Perhaps this disturbed him, for by-and-by I 
 had to inquire, "You are not frightened, are you?" 
 
 "Am I not?" he answered politely, and I knew 
 his hand was groping in the darkness, so I put 
 out mine and he held on tightly to one finger. 
 
 "I am not frightened now," he whispered. 
 
 "And there is nothing else you want?" 
 
 "Is there not?" he again asked politely. "Are 
 you sure there's not?" he added. 
 
 "What can it be, David?" 
 
 "I don't take up very much room," the far-away 
 voice saido 
 
 "Why, David," said I, sitting up, "do you want 
 to come into my bed?" 
 
 "Mother said I wasn't to want it unless you 
 wanted it first," he squeaked. 
 
 "It is what I have been wanting aU the time," 
 said I, and then without more ado the little white 
 figure rose and flung itself at me. For the rest of 
 the night he lay on me and across me, and some- 
 times his feet were at the bottom of the bed and 
 sometimes on the pillow, but he always retained 
 258 
 
AN INTERLOPER 
 
 possession of my finger, and occasionally he woke 
 me to say that he was sleeping with me. I had not 
 a good night. I lay thinking. 
 
 Of this little boy, who, in the midst of his play 
 while I undressed him, had suddenly buried his 
 head on my knees. 
 
 Of the woman who had been for him who could 
 be sufficiently daring. 
 
 Of David's dripping little form in the bath, and 
 how when I essayed to catch him he had slipped 
 from my arms like a trout. 
 
 Of how I had stood by the open door listening 
 to his sweet breathing, had stood so long that I 
 forgot his name and called him Timothy. 
 
 259 
 
XX 
 
 DAVID AND FOKTHOS COMPAKED 
 
 JjUT Mary spoilt it all, when I sent David back 
 to her in the morning, by inquiring too curiously 
 into his person and discovering that I had put his 
 combinations on him with the buttons to the front. 
 For this I wrote her the following insulting letter. 
 When Mary does anything that specially annoys 
 me I send her an insulting letter. I once had a 
 photograph taken of David being hanged on a 
 tree. I sent her that. You can't think of all the 
 subtle ways of grieving her I have. No woman with 
 the spirit of a crow would stand it. 
 
 "Dear Madam [I wrote], It has come to my 
 knowledge that when you walk in the Gardens with 
 the boy David you listen avidly for encomiums of 
 him and of your fanciful dressing of him by pass- 
 ers-by, storing them in your heart the while you 
 make vain pretence to regard them not : wherefore 
 lest you be swollen by these very small things I, 
 S60 
 
DAVID AND PORTHOS 
 
 who now know David both by day and by night, 
 am minded to compare him and Porthos the one 
 with the other, both in this matter and in other 
 matters of graver account. And touching this mat- 
 ter of outward show, they are both very lordly, 
 and neither of them likes it to be referred to, but 
 they endure in different ways. For David says 'Oh, 
 bother!' and even at times hits out, but Porthos 
 droops his tail and lets them have their say. Yet is 
 he extolled as beautiful and a darling ten times for 
 the once that David is extolled. 
 
 "The manners of Porthos are therefore prettier 
 than the manners of David, who when he has sent 
 me to hide from him behind a tree sometimes comes 
 not in search, and on emerging tamely from my 
 concealment I find him playing other games en- 
 tirely forgetful of my existence. Whereas Porthos 
 always comes in search. Also if David wearies of 
 you he scruples not to say so, but Porthos, in like 
 circumstances, offers you his paw, meaning 'Fare- 
 well,' and to bearded men he does this all the time 
 (I think because of a hereditary distaste for 
 goats), so that they conceive him to be enamoured 
 &61 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 of them when he is only begging them courteously 
 to go. Thus while the manners of Porthos are more 
 polite it may be argued that those of David are 
 more efficacious. 
 
 "In gentleness David compares ill with Porthos. 
 For whereas the one shoves and has been known to 
 kick on slight provocation, the other, who is noisily 
 hated of all small dogs by reason of his size, remon- 
 strates not, even when they cling in froth and fury 
 to his chest, but carries them along tolerantly 
 untU they drop off from fatigue. Again, David 
 will not unbend when in the company of babies, 
 expecting them unreasonably to rise to his level, 
 but contrariwise Porthos, though terrible to 
 tramps, suffers all things of babies, even to an ex- 
 ploration of his mouth in an attempt to discover 
 what his tongue is like at the other end. The com- 
 ings and goings of David are unnoticed by peram- 
 bulators, which lie in wait for the advent of 
 Porthos. The strong and wicked fear Porthos but 
 no little creature fears him, not the hedgehogs he 
 conveys from place to place in his mouth, nor the 
 sparrows that steal his straw from under him. 
 &6Z 
 
DAVID AND PORTHOS 
 
 "In proof of which gentleness I adduce his ad- 
 venture with the rabbit. Having gone for a time to 
 reside in a rabbit country Porthos was elated to 
 discover at last something small that ran from him, 
 and developing at once into an ecstatic sportsman 
 he did pound hotly in pursuit, though always over- 
 shooting the mark by a hundred yards or so and 
 wondering very much what had become of the rab- 
 bit. There was a steep path, from the top of which 
 the rabbit suddenly came into view, and the prac- 
 tice of Porthos was to advance up it on tiptoe, 
 turning near the summit to give me a knowing 
 look and then bounding forward. The rabbit here 
 did something tricky with a hole in the ground, 
 but Porthos tore onwards in full faith that the 
 game was being played fairly, and always re- 
 turned panting and puzzling but glorious. 
 
 "I sometimes shuddered to think of his perplex- 
 ity should he catch the rabbit, which however was 
 extremely unlikely; nevertheless he did catch it, I 
 know not how, but presume it to have been another 
 than the one of which he was in chase. I found 
 him with It, his brows furrowed in the deepest 
 263 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 thought. The rabbit, terrified but uninjured, cow- 
 ered beneath him. Porthos gave me a happy look 
 and again dropped into a weighty frame of mind. 
 'What is the next thing one does.-" was obviously 
 the puzzle with him, and the position was scarcely 
 less awkward for the rabbit, which several times 
 made a move to end this intolerable suspense. 
 Whereupon Porthos immediately gave it a warning 
 'tap with his foot, and again fell to pondering. The 
 strain on me was very great. 
 
 "At last they seemed to hit upon a compromise. 
 Porthos looked over his shoulder very self-con- 
 sciously, and the rabbit at first slowly and then in 
 a flash withdrew. Porthos pretended to make a 
 search for it, but you cannot think how relieved he 
 looked. He even tried to brazen out his disgrace 
 before me and waved his tail appealingly. But he 
 could not look me in the face, and when he saw that 
 this was what I insisted on he coUapsed at my feet 
 and moaned. There were real tears in his eyes, and 
 I was touched, and swore to him that he had done 
 everything a dog could do, and though he knew 
 I was lying he became happy again. For so long as 
 264, 
 
DAVID AND PORTHOS 
 
 I am pleased with him, ma'am, nothing else greatly 
 matters to Porthos. I told this story to David, hav- 
 ing first extracted a promise from him that he 
 would not think the less of Porthos, and now I 
 must demand the same promise of you. Also, an 
 admission that in innocence of heart, for which 
 David has been properly commended, he can never- 
 theless teach Porthos nothing, but on the contrary 
 may learn much from him. 
 
 "And now to come to those qualities in which 
 David excels over Porthos — ^the first is that he is 
 no snob but esteems the girl Irene (pretentiously 
 called his nurse) more than any fine lady, and en- 
 vies every ragged boy who can hit to leg. Whereas 
 Porthos would have every class keep its place, and 
 though fond of going down into the kitchen, al- 
 ways barks at the top of the stairs for a servile in- 
 vitation before he graciously descends. Most of the 
 servants in our street have had the loan of him to 
 be photographed with, and I have but now seen 
 him stalking off for that purpose with a proud 
 
 little housemaid who is looking up to him as if he 
 
 . . . ^ 
 
 were a warrior for whom she had paid a shilling. 
 
 265 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "Again, when David and Porthos are in their 
 bath, praise is due to the one and must be withheld 
 from the other. For David, as I have noticed, loves 
 to splash in his bath and to sHp back into it from 
 the hands that would transfer him to a toweL 
 But Porthos stands in his bath drooping ab- 
 jectly like a shamed figure cut out of some limp 
 material. 
 
 "Furthermore, the inventiveness of David is be- 
 yond that of Porthos, who cannot play by himself, 
 and knows not even how to take a solitary walk, 
 while David invents playfully all day long. Lastly, 
 when David is discovered of some offence and ex- 
 presses sorrow therefor, he does that thing no more 
 for a time, but looks about him for other offences, 
 whereas Porthos incontinently repeats his offence, 
 in other words, he again buries his bone in the back- 
 yard, and marvels greatly that I know it, although 
 his nose be crusted with earth. 
 
 "Touching these matters, therefore, let it be 
 
 granted that David excels Porthos; and in divers 
 
 similar qualities the one is no more than a match 
 
 for the other, as in the quality of curiosity ; for, if 
 
 S66 
 
DAVID AND PORTHOS 
 
 a parcel comes into my chambers Porthos is mis- 
 erable until it is opened, and I have noticed the 
 same thing of David. 
 
 "Also there is the taking of medicine. For at 
 production of the vial all gaiety suddenly departs 
 from Porthos and he looks the other way, but if I 
 say I have forgotten to have the vial refilled he 
 skips joyfully, yet thinks he still has a right to a 
 chocolate, and when I remarked disparagingly on 
 this to David he looked so shy that there was re- 
 vealed to me a picture of a certain lady treating 
 him for youthful maladies. 
 
 "A thing to be considered of in both is their re- 
 ceiving of punishments, and I am now reminded 
 that the girl Irene (whom I take in this matter to 
 be your mouthpiece) complains that I am not suf- 
 ficiently severe with David, and do leave the chid- 
 ing of him for offences against myself to her in 
 the hope that he will love her less and me more 
 thereby. Which we have hotly argued in the Gar- 
 dens to the detriment of our dignity. And I here 
 say that if I am slow to be severe to David, the 
 reason thereof is that I dare not be severe to Por* 
 267 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 thos, and I have ever sought to treat the one the 
 same with the other. 
 
 "Now I refrain from raising hand or voice to 
 Porthos because his great heart is nigh to break- 
 ing if he so much as suspects that all is not well 
 between him and me, and having struck him once 
 some years ago never can I forget the shudder 
 which passed through him when he saw it was I 
 who had struck, and I shall strike him, ma'am, no 
 more. But when he is detected in any unseemly act 
 now, it is my stern practice to cane my writing 
 table in his presence, and even this punishment is 
 almost more than he can bear. Wherefore if such 
 chastisement inflicted on David encourages him but 
 to enter upon fresh trespasses (as the girl Irene 
 avers), the reason must be that his heart is not like 
 unto that of the noble Porthos. 
 
 "And if you retort that David is naturally a de- 
 praved little boy, and so demands harsher measure, 
 I have still my answer, to wit, what is the manner 
 of severity meted out to him at home? And lest 
 you should shuffle in your reply I shall meption a 
 notable passage that has come to my ears. 
 268 
 
DAVID AND PORTHOS 
 
 "As thus, that David having heard a horrid 
 word in the street, uttered it with unction in the 
 home. That the mother threatened corporal punish- 
 ment, whereat the father tremblingly intervened. 
 That David continuing to rejoice exceedingly in 
 his word, the father spoke darkly of a cane, but the 
 mother rushed between the combatants. That the 
 problematical chastisement became to David an ob- 
 ject of romantic interest. That this darkened the 
 happy home. That casting from his path a weeping 
 mother, the goaded father at last dashed from the 
 house yelling that he was away to buy a cane. That 
 he merely walked the streets white to the lips be- 
 cause of the terror David must now be feeling. And 
 that when he returned, it was David radiant with 
 hope who opened the door and then burst into tears 
 because there was no cane. Truly, ma'am, you are 
 a fitting person to tax me with want of severity. 
 Rather should you be giving thanks that it is not 
 you I am comparing with Porthos. 
 
 "But to make an end of this comparison, I men- 
 tion that Porthos is ever wishful to express grat- 
 itude for my kindness to him, so that looking up 
 269 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 from my book I see his mournful eyes fixed upon 
 me with a passionate attachment, and then I know 
 that the well-nigh unbearable sadness which comes 
 into the face of dogs is because they cannot say 
 Thank you to their masters. Whereas David takes 
 my kindness as his right. But for this, while I 
 should chide him I cannot do so, for of all the ways 
 David has of making me to love him the most 
 poignant is that he expects it of me as a matter of 
 course. David is aU for fun, but none may plumb 
 the depths of Porthos. Nevertheless I am most 
 nearly doing so when I lie down beside him on the 
 floor and he puts an arm about my neck. On my 
 soul, ma'am, a protecting arm. At such times it is 
 as if each of us knew what was the want of the 
 other. 
 
 "Thus weighing Porthos with David it were 
 hard to tell which is the worthier. Wherefore do 
 you keep your boy while I keep my dog, and so 
 we shall both be pleased." 
 
 270 
 
XXI 
 
 WTLLIAM PATEESON 
 
 YV E had been together, we three, in my rooms, 
 David telling me about the fairy language and 
 Porthos lolling on the sofa listening, as one may 
 say. It is his favourite place of a dull day, and 
 under him were some sheets of newspaper, which I 
 spread there at such times to deceive my house- 
 keeper, who thinks dogs should lie on the floor, 
 
 Fmry me tribber is what you say to the fairies 
 when you want them to give you a cup of tea, but 
 it is not so easy as it looks, for all the r's should 
 be pronounced as w's, and I forget this so often 
 that David believes I should find difficulty in mak- 
 ing myself understood. 
 
 "What would you say," he asked me, "if you 
 wanted them to turn you into a hollyhock?" He 
 thinks the ease with which they can turn you into 
 things is their most engaging quality. 
 
 The answer is Fairi/ me lukha, but though he 
 had often told me this I again forgot the luleka. 
 271 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "I should never dream," I said (to cover my dis- 
 comfiture), "of asking them to turn me into any- 
 thing. If I was a hollyhock I should soon wither, 
 David." 
 
 He himself had provided me with this objection 
 not long before, but now he seemed to think it 
 merely silly. "Just before the time to wither be- 
 gins," he said airily, "you say to them Fairy me 
 bola." 
 
 Fairy me bola means "Turn me back again," 
 and David's discovery made me uncomfortable, for 
 I knew he had hitherto kept his distance of the 
 fairies mainly because of a feeling that their con- 
 versions are permanent. 
 
 So I returned him to his home. I send him home 
 from my rooms under the care of Porthos. I may 
 walk on the other side unknown to them, but they 
 have no need of me, for at such times nothing would 
 induce Porthos to depart from the care of David. 
 If anyone addresses them he growls softly and 
 shows the teeth that crunch bones as if they were 
 biscuits. Thus amicably the two pass on to Mary's 
 house, where Porthos barks his knock-and-ring 
 272 
 
WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 bark till the door is opened. Sometimes he goes in 
 with David, but on this occasion he said good-bye 
 on the step. Nothing remarkable in this, but he 
 did not return to me, not that day nor next day 
 nor in weeks and months. I was a man distraught; 
 and David wore his knuckles in his eyes. Conceive 
 it, we had lost our dear Porthos — at least — ^well — 
 something disquieting happened. I don't quite 
 know what to think of it even now. I know what 
 David thinks. However, you shall think as you 
 choose. 
 
 My first hope was that Porthos had strolled to 
 the Gardens and got locked in for the night, and 
 almost as soon as Lock-out was over I was there to 
 make inquiries. But there was no news of Porthos, 
 though I learned that someone was believed to have 
 spent the night in the Gardens, a young gentleman 
 who walked out hastily the moment the gates were 
 opened. He had said nothing, however, of having 
 seen a dog. I feared an accident now, for I knew 
 no thief could steal him, yet even an accident 
 seemed incredible, he was always so cautious at 
 crossings; also there could not possibly have been 
 873 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 an accident to Porthos without there being an acci- 
 dent to something else. 
 
 David in the middle of his games would suddenly 
 remember the great blank and step aside to cry. 
 It was one of his qualities that when he knew he 
 was about to cry he turned aside to do it and I 
 always respecjpd his privacy and waited for him. 
 Of course'being but a little boy he was soon playing 
 again, but his sudden floods of feeling, of which we 
 never spoke, were dear to me in those desolate days. 
 
 We had a favourite haunt, called the Story-seat, 
 and we went back to that, meaning not to look at 
 the grass near it where Porthos used to squat, but 
 we could not help looking at it sideways, and to our 
 distress a man was sitting on the acquainted spot. 
 He rose at our approach and took two steps toward 
 us, so quick that they were almost jumps, then as 
 he saw that we were passing indignantly I thought 
 I heard him give a little cry. 
 
 I put him down for one of your garrulous fellows 
 who try to lure strangers into talk, but next day, 
 when we found him sitting on the Story-seat itself, 
 I had a longer scrutiny of him. He was dandiacally 
 
WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 dressed, seemed to tell something under twenty 
 years and had a handsome wistful face atop of a 
 heavy, lumbering, almost corpulent figure, which 
 however did not betoken inactivity; for David's 
 purple hat (a conceit of his mother's of which we 
 were both heartily ashamed) blowing off as we 
 neared him he leapt the railings without touching 
 them and was back with it in three seconds; only 
 instead of delivering it straightway he seemed to 
 expect David to chase him for it. 
 
 You have introduced yourself to David when you 
 jump the railings without touching them, and Will- 
 iam Paterson (as proved to be his name) was at 
 once our friend. We often found him waiting for 
 us at the Story-seat, and the great stout fellow 
 laughed and wept over our tales like a three-year- 
 old. Often he said with extraordinary pride, "You 
 are telling the story to me quite as much as to 
 David, ar'n't you?" He was of an innocence such 
 as you shall seldom encounter, and believed stories 
 at which even David blinked. Often he looked at me 
 in quick alarm if David said that of course these 
 things did not really happen, and unable to resist 
 275 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 that appeal I would reply that they really did. I 
 never saw him irate except when David was still 
 sceptical, but then he would say quite warningly 
 "He says it is true, so it must be true." This brings 
 me to that one of his qualities, which at once grati- 
 fied and pained me, his admiration for myself. His 
 eyes, which at times had a rim of red, were ever 
 fixed upon me fondly except perhaps when I told 
 him of Porthos and said that death alone could 
 have kept him so long from my side. Then 
 Paterson's sympathy was such that he had to 
 look away. He was shy of speaking of himself so 
 I asked him no personal questions, but concluded 
 that his upbringing must have been lonely, to 
 account for his ignorance of affairs, and loveless, 
 else how could he have felt such a drawing to me? 
 
 I remember very well the day when the strange, 
 and surely monstrous, suspicion first made my head 
 tingle. We had been blown, the three of us, to my 
 rooms by a gust of rain ; it was also, I think, the 
 first time Paterson had entered them. "Take the 
 sofa, Mr. Paterson," I said, as I drew a chair 
 nearer to the fire, and for the moment my eyes were 
 276 
 
WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 off him. Then I saw that, before sitting down on 
 the sofa, he was spreading the day's paper over it. 
 "Whatever makes you do that?" I asked, and he 
 started like one bewildered by the question, then 
 went white and pushed the paper aside. 
 
 David had noticed nothing, but I was strangely 
 uncomfortable, and, despite my efforts at talk, 
 often lapsed into silence, to be roused from it by 
 a feeling that Paterson was looking at me covertly. 
 Pooh ! what vapours of the imagination were these. 
 I blew them from me, and to prove to myself, so 
 to speak, that they were dissipated, I asked him to 
 see David home. As soon as I was alone, I flung 
 me down on the floor laughing, then as quickly 
 jumped up and was after them, and very sober 
 too, for it was come to me abruptly as an odd thing 
 that Paterson had set off without asking where 
 David Hved. 
 
 Seeing them in front of me, I crossed the street 
 and followed. They were walking side by side 
 rather solemnly, and perhaps nothing remarkable 
 happened until they reached David's door. I say 
 perhaps, for something did occur. A lady, who has 
 277 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 several pretty reasons for frequenting the Gardens, 
 recognised David in the street, and was stooping to 
 address him, when Paterson did something that 
 alarmed her. I was too far off to see what it was, 
 but had he growled "Hands off!" she could not 
 have scurried away more precipitately. He then 
 ponderously marched his charge to the door, where, 
 assuredly, he did a strange thing. Instead of knock- 
 ing or ringing, he stood on the step and called out 
 sharply, "Hie, hie, hie !" until the door was opened. 
 
 The whimsy, for it could be nothing more, cur- 
 tailed me of my sleep that night, and you may pict- 
 ure me trying both sides of the pillow. 
 
 I recalled other queer things of Paterson, and 
 they came back to me charged with new meanings. 
 There was his way of shaking hands. He now did 
 it in the ordinary way, but when first we knew him 
 his arm had described a circle, and the hand had 
 sometimes missed mine and come heavily upon my 
 chest instead. His walk, again, might more cor- 
 rectly have been called a waddle. 
 
 There were his perfervid thanks. He seldom de- 
 parted without thanking me with an intensity that 
 278 
 
WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 was out of proportion to the little I had done for 
 him. In the Gardens, too, he seemed ever to take 
 the sward rather than the seats, perhaps a wise 
 preference, but he had an unusual way of sitting 
 down. I can describe it only by saying that he let 
 go of himself and went down with a thud. 
 
 I reverted to the occasion when he lunched with 
 me at the Club. We had cutlets, and I noticed that 
 he ate his in a somewhat finicking manner ; yet hav- 
 ing left the table for a moment to consult the 
 sweets-card, I saw, when I returned, that there was 
 now no bone on his plate. The waiters were looking 
 at him rather curiously. 
 
 David was very partial to him, but showed it 
 in a somewhat singular manner, used to pat his 
 head, for instance. I remembered, also, that while 
 David shouted to me or Irene to attract our at- 
 tention, he usually whistled to Paterson, he could 
 not explain why. 
 
 These ghosts made me to sweat in bed, not merely 
 
 that night, but often when some new shock brought 
 
 them back in force, yet, unsupported, they would 
 
 heave disturbed me little by day. Day, however, had 
 
 279 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 its reflections, and they came to me while I was 
 shaving, that ten minutes when, brought face to 
 face with the harsher realities of life, we see things 
 most clearly as they are. Then the beautiful nature 
 of Paterson loomed offensively, and his honest eyes 
 insulted over me. No one come to nigh twenty years 
 had a right to such faith in his fellow-creatures. 
 He could not backbite, nor envy, nor prevaricate, 
 nor jump at mean motives for generous acts. He 
 had not a single base story about women. It all 
 seemed inhuman. , 
 
 What creatures we be! I was more than half 
 ashamed of Paterson's faith in me, but when I saw 
 it begin to shrink I fought for it. An easy task, 
 you may say, but it was a hard one, for gradually 
 a change had come over the youth. I am now ar- 
 rived at a time when the light-heartedness had gone 
 out of him ; he had lost his zest for fun, and dubiety 
 sat in the eyes that were once so certain. He was 
 not doubtful of me, not then, but of human nature 
 in general ; that whilom noble edifice was tottering. 
 He mixed with boys in the Gardens; ah, mothers, 
 it is hard to say, but how could he retain his 
 280 
 
WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 innocence when he had mixed with boys? He 
 heard your talk of yourselves, and so, ladies, that 
 part of the edifice went down. I have not the heart 
 to follow him in aU his discoveries. Sometimes he 
 went in flame at them, but for the most part he 
 stood looking on, bewildered and numbed, like one 
 moaning inwardly. 
 
 He saw all, as one fresh to the world, before he 
 had time to breathe upon the glass. So would your 
 child be, madam, if born with a man's powers, and 
 when disillusioned of all else, he would cling for a 
 moment longer to you, the woman of whom, before 
 he saw you, he had heard so much. How you would 
 strive to cheat him, even as I strove to hide my real 
 self from Paterson, and stiU you would strive as 
 I strove after you knew the game was up. 
 
 The sorrowful eyes of Paterson stripped me 
 bare. There were days when I could not endure 
 looking at him, though surely I have long ceased 
 to be a vain man. He still met us in the Gardens, 
 but for hours he and I would be together without 
 speaking. It was so upon the last day, one of those 
 innumerable dreary days when David, having 
 281 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 sneezed the night before, was kept at home in flan- 
 nel, and I sat alone with Paterson on the Story- 
 seat. At last I turned to address him. Never had we 
 spoken of what chained our tongues, and I meant 
 only to say now that we must go, for soon the gates 
 would close, but when I looked at him I saw that he 
 was more mournful than ever before; he shut his 
 eyes so tightly that a drop of blood fell from them. 
 
 "It was all over, Paterson, long ago," I broke 
 out harshly, "why do we linger?" 
 
 He beat his hands together miserably, and yet 
 cast me appealing looks that had much affection 
 in them. 
 
 "You expected too much of me," I told him, and 
 he bowed his head. "I don't know where you 
 brought your grand ideas of men and women from. 
 I don't want to know," I added hastily. 
 
 "But it must have been from a prettier world 
 than this," I said: "are you quite sure that you 
 were wise in leaving it.*"' 
 
 He rose and sat down again. "I wanted to know 
 you," he replied slowly, "I wanted to be hke you." 
 
 "And now you know me," I said, "do you want 
 282 
 
WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 to be like me still? I am a curious person to attach 
 oneself to, Paterson ; don't you see that even David 
 often smiles at me when he thinks he is unobserved. 
 I work very hard to retain that little boy's love; 
 but I shall lose him soon ; even now I am not what 
 I was to him ; in a year or two at longest, Paterson, 
 David will grow out of me." 
 
 The poor fellow shot out his hand to me, but 
 "No," said I, "you have found me out. Everybody 
 finds me out except my dog, and that is why the 
 loss of him makes such a difference to me. Shall we 
 go, Paterson.?" 
 
 He would not come with me, and I left him on 
 the seat; when I was far away I looked back, and 
 5ie was still sitting there forlornly. 
 
 For long I could not close my ears that night: 
 I lay listening,! knew not what for. A scare was on 
 me that made me dislike the dark, and I switched 
 on the light and slept at last. I was roused by a 
 great to-do In the early morning, servants knock- 
 ing excitedly, and my door opened, and the dear 
 Porthos I had mourned so long tore in. They had 
 heard his bark, but whence he came no one knew. 
 283 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 He was in excellent condition, and after he had 
 leaped upon me from aU points I flung him on the 
 floor by a trick I know, and lay down beside him, 
 while he put his protecting arm round me and 
 looked at me with the old adoring eyes. 
 
 But we never saw Paterson again. You may think 
 as you choose. 
 
 9$4> 
 
xxn 
 
 JOET 
 
 W ISE children always choose a mother ^dlo 
 was a shocking flirt in her maiden days, and so 
 had several offers before she accepted their fortu- 
 nate papa. The reason they do this is because every 
 offer refused by their mother means another panto- 
 mime to them. You see you can't trust to your 
 father's taking you to the pantomime, but you can 
 trust to every one of the poor frenzied gentlemen 
 for whom that lady has wept a delicious little tear 
 on her lovely little cambric handkerchief. It is 
 pretty (but dreadfully affecting) to see them on 
 Boxing Night gathering together the babies of 
 their old loves. Some knock at but one door and 
 bring a hansom, but others go from street to street 
 in private 'buses, and even wear false noses to con- 
 ceal the sufferings you inflict upon them as you" 
 grew more and more like your sweet cruel mamma. 
 So I took David to the pantomime, and I hope 
 S85 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 you follow my reasoning, for I don't. He went with 
 the fairest anticipations, pausing on the threshold 
 to peer through the hole in the little house called 
 "Pay Here," which he thought was Red Riding 
 Hood's residence, and asked politely whether he 
 might see her, but they said she had gone to the 
 wood, and it was quite true, for there she was in 
 the wood gathering a stick for her grandmother's 
 fire. She sang a beautiful song about the Boys and 
 their dashing ways, which flattered David consid- 
 erably, but she forgot to take away the stick after 
 aU. Other parts of the play were not so nice, but 
 David thought it all lovely, he really did. 
 
 Yet he left the place in tears. All the way home 
 he sobbed in the darkest comer of the growler, 
 and if I tried to comfort him he struck me. 
 
 The clown had done it, that man of whom he 
 expected things so fair. He had asked in a loud 
 voice of the middling funny gentleman (then in the 
 middle of a song) whether he thought Joey would 
 be long in coming, and when at last Joey did come 
 he screamed out, "How do you do, Joey !" and went 
 into coQviilsions pf mirth. 
 286 
 
JOEY 
 
 Joey and his father were shadowing a pork- 
 butcher's shop, pocketing the sausages for which 
 their family has such a fatal weakness, and so 
 when the butcher engaged Joey as his assistant 
 there was soon not a sausage left. However, this 
 did not matter, for there was a box rather like an 
 ice-cream machine, and you put chunks of pork 
 in at one end and turned a handle and they came 
 out as sausages at the other end. Joey quite en- 
 joyed doing this, and you could see that the sau- 
 sages were excellent by the way he licked his fingers 
 after touching them, but soon there were no more 
 pieces of pork, and just then a dear little Irish 
 terrier-dog came trotting down the street, so what 
 did Joey do but pop it into the machine and it 
 came out at the other end as sausages. 
 
 It was this callous act that turned all David's 
 mirth to woe, and drove us weeping to our growler. 
 
 Heaven knows I have no wish to defend this cruel 
 deed, but as Joey told me afterward, it is very 
 difficult to say what they will think funny and what 
 barbarous. I was forced to admit to him that David 
 had perceived only the joyous in the pokering of 
 287 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the policeman's legs, and had called out heartily 
 "Do it again !" every time Joey knocked the pan- 
 taloon down with one kick and helped him up with 
 another. 
 
 "It hurts the poor chap," I was told by Joey, 
 whom I was agreeably surprised to find by no means 
 wanting in the more humane feelings, "and he 
 wouldn't stand it if there wasn't the laugh to en- 
 courage him." 
 
 He maintained that the dog got that laugh to 
 encourage him also. 
 
 However, he had not got it from David, whose 
 mother and father and nurse combined could not 
 comfort him, though they swore that the dog was 
 still alive and kicking, which might all have been 
 very well had not David seen the sausages. It was 
 to inquire whether anything could be done to atone 
 that in considerable trepidation I sent in my card 
 to the clown, and the result of our talk was that 
 he invited me and David to have tea with him on 
 Thursday next at his lodgings. 
 
 "I sha'n't laugh," David said, nobly true to the 
 memory of the little dog, "I sha'n't laugh once," 
 288 
 
JOEY 
 
 and he closed his jaws very tightly as we drew 
 near the house in Soho where Joey lodged. But he 
 also gripped my hand, like one who knew that it 
 would be an ordeal not to laugh. 
 
 The house was rather like the ordinary kind, 
 but there was a convenient sausage-shop exactly 
 opposite (trust Joey for that) and we saw a police- 
 man in the street looking the other way, as they 
 always do look just before you rub them. A woman 
 wearing the same kind of clothes as people in other 
 houses wear, told us to go up to the second floor, 
 and she grinned at David, as if she had heard about 
 him ; so up we went, David muttering through his 
 clenched teeth, "I sha'n't laugh," and as soon as 
 we knocked a voice called out, "Here we are again !" 
 at which a shudder passed through David as if 
 he feared that he had set himself an impossible 
 task. In we went, however, and though the voice 
 had certainly come from this room we found no- 
 body there. I looked in bewilderment at David, and 
 he quickly put his hand over his mouth. 
 
 It was a funny room, of course, but not so funny 
 as you might expect ; there were droll things in it, 
 289 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 but they did nothing funny, you could see that they 
 were just waiting for Joey. There were padded 
 chairs with friendly looking rents down the middle 
 of them, and a table and a horse-hair sofa, and 
 we sat down very cautiously on the sofa but 
 nothing happened to us. 
 
 The biggest piece of furniture was an enormous 
 wicker trunk, with a very lively coloured stocking 
 / dangling out at a hole in it, and a notice on the 
 top that Joey was the funniest man on earth. David 
 tried to pull the stocking out of the hole, but it was 
 so long that it never came to an end, and when it 
 measured six times the length of the room he had 
 to cover his mouth again. 
 
 "I'm not laughing," he said to me, quite fiercely. 
 He even managed not to laugh (though he did 
 gulp) when we discovered on the mantelpiece a 
 photograph of Joey in ordinary clothes, the gar- 
 ments he wore before he became a clown. You can't 
 think how absurd he looked in them. But David 
 didn't laugh. 
 
 Suddenly Joey was standing beside us, it could 
 not have been more sudden though he had come 
 
JOEY 
 
 from beneath the table, and he was wearing his 
 pantomime clothes (which he told us afterward 
 were the only clothes he had) and his red and 
 white face was so funny that David made gurgling 
 sounds, which were his laugh trying to force a 
 passage. 
 
 I introduced David, who offered his hand stiffly, 
 but Joey, instead of taking it, put out his tongue 
 and waggled it, and this was so droll that David 
 had again to save himself by clapping his hand 
 over his mouth. Joey thought he had toothache, so 
 I explained what it really meant, and then Joey 
 said, "Oh, I shall soon make him laugh," where- 
 upon the following conversation took place be- 
 tween them: 
 
 "No, you sha'n't," said David doggedly. 
 
 "Yes, I shall." 
 
 "No, you sha'n't not." 
 
 "Yes, I shall so." 
 
 "Sha'n't, sha'n't, sha'n't." 
 
 "Shall, shall, shall." 
 
 "You shut up." 
 
 "You're another." 
 
 S9i 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 By this time Joey was in a frightful way (be- 
 cause he saw he was getting the worst of it), and 
 he boasted that he had David's laugh in his pocket, 
 and David challenged him to produce it, and Joey 
 searched his pockets and brought out the most un- 
 expected articles, including a duck and a bunch of 
 carrots ; and you could see by his manner that the 
 simple soul thought these were things which all 
 boys carried loose in their pockets. 
 
 I daresay David would have had to laugh in the 
 end, had there not been a half -gnawed sausage in 
 one of the pockets, and the sight of it reminded 
 him so cruelly of the poor dog's fate that he 
 howled, and Joey's heart was touched at last, 
 and he also wept, but he wiped his eyes with the 
 duck. 
 
 It was at this touching moment that the panta- 
 loon hobbled in, also dressed as we had seen him 
 last, and carrying, unfortunately, a trayful of 
 sausages, which at once increased the general 
 gloom, for he announced, in his squeaky voice, that 
 they were the very sausages that had lately been 
 the dog. 
 
 292 
 
JOEY 
 
 Then Joey seemed to have a great idea, and his 
 excitement was so impressive that we stood gazing 
 at him. First, he counted the sausages, and said 
 that they were two short, and he found the miss- 
 ing two up the pantaloon's sleeve. Then he ran out 
 of the room and came hack with the sausage-ma- 
 chine; and what do you think he did.'' He put all 
 the sausages into the end of the machine that they 
 had issued from, and turned the handle backward, 
 and then out came the dog at the other end ! 
 
 Can you picture the joy of David.'' 
 
 He clasped the dear little terrier in his arms; 
 and then we noticed that there was a sausage ad- 
 hering to its tail. The pantaloon said we must have 
 put in a sausage too many, but Joey said the ma- 
 chine had not worked quite smoothly and that he 
 feared this sausage was the dog's bark, which dis- 
 tressed David, for he saw how awkward it must 
 be to a dog to have its bark outside, and we were 
 considering what should be done when the dog 
 closed the discussion by swallowing the sausage. 
 
 After that, David had the most hilarious hour 
 of his life, entering into the childish pleasures of 
 293 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 this family as heartily as if he had been brought 
 up on sausages, and knocking the pantaloon down 
 repeatedly. You must not think that he did this 
 viciously; he did it to please the old gentleman, 
 who begged him to do it, and always shook hands 
 warmly and said "Thank you," when he had done 
 it. They are quite a simple people. 
 
 Joey called David and me "Sonny," and asked 
 David, who addressed him as "Mr. Clown," to call 
 him Joey. He also told us that the pantaloon's 
 name was old Joey, and the columbine's Josy, and 
 the harlequin's Joeykin. 
 
 We were sorry to hear that old Joey gave him 
 a good deal of trouble. This was because his mem- 
 ory is so bad that he often forgets whether it is 
 your head or your feet you should stand on, and 
 he usually begins the day by standing on the end 
 that happens to get out of bed first. Thus he re- 
 quires constant watching, and the worst of it is, 
 you dare not draw attention to his mistake, he is 
 so shrinkingly sensitive about it. No sooner had 
 Joey told us this than the poor old fellow began to 
 turn upside down and stood on his head; but we 
 
JOEY 
 
 pretended not to notice, and talked about the 
 weather until he came to. 
 
 Josy and Joeykin, all skirts and spangles, were 
 with us by this time, for they had been invited to 
 tea. They came in dancing, and danced ofF and on 
 most of the time. Even in the middle of what they 
 were saying they would begin to flutter ; it was not 
 so much that they meant to dance as that the slight- 
 est thing set them going, such as sitting in a. 
 draught; and David found he could blow themi 
 about the room Uke pieces of paper. You could see' 
 by the shortness of Josy's dress that she was very 
 young indeed, and at first this made him shy, as 
 he always is when introduced formally to httle 
 girls, and he stood sucking his thumb, and so 
 did she, but soon the stiffness wore off and they 
 sat together on the sofa, holding each other's 
 hands. 
 
 All this time the harlequin was rotating like a 
 beautiful fish, and David requested him to jump- 
 through the wall, at which he is such an adept, and! 
 first he said he wovdd, and then he said better not,, 
 for the last time he did it the people in the next 
 295 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 house had made such a fuss. David had to admit 
 that it must be rather startling to the people on 
 the other side of the wall, but he was sorry. 
 
 By this time tea was ready, and Josy, who 
 poured out, remembered to ask if you took mOk 
 with just one drop of tea in it, exactly as her 
 mother would have asked. There was nothing to 
 eat, of course, except sausages, but what a nimiber 
 of them there were! hundreds at least, strings of 
 sausages, and every now and then Joey jumped up 
 and played skipping rope with them. David had 
 been taught not to look greedy, even though he 
 felt greedy, and he was shocked to see the way in 
 which Joey and old Joey and even Josy eyed the 
 sausages they had given him. Soon Josy developed 
 nobler feelings, for she and Joey kin suddenly fell 
 madly in love with each other across the table, but 
 unaffected by this pretty picture, Joey continued 
 to put whole sausages in his mouth at a time, and 
 then rubbed himself a little lower down, while old 
 Joey secreted them about his person; and when 
 David wasn't looking they both pounced on his 
 sausages, and yet as they gobbled they were con- 
 296 
 
JOEY 
 
 stantly running to the top of the stair and 
 screaming to the servant to bring up more sau- 
 
 You could see that Joey (if you caught him with 
 his hand in your plate) was a bit ashamed of him- 
 self, and he admitted to us that sausages were a 
 passion with him. 
 
 He said he had never once in his life had a suf- 
 ficient number of sausages. They had maddened 
 him since he was the smallest boy. He told us how, 
 even in those days, his mother had feared for him, 
 though fond of a sausage herself; how he had 
 bought a sausage with his first penny, and hoped 
 to buy one with his last (if they could not be got 
 in any other way), and that he always slept with 
 a string of them beneath his pillow. 
 
 While he was giving us these confidences, un- 
 fortunately, his eyes came to rest, at first acci- 
 dentally, then wistfully, then with a horrid gleam 
 in them, on the little dog, which was fooling about 
 on the top of the sausage-machine, and his hands 
 went out toward it convulsively, whereat David, in 
 sudden fear, seized the dog in one arm and gal- 
 297 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 lantly clenched his other fist, and then Joey begged 
 his pardon and burst into tears, each one of which 
 he flung against the wall, where it exploded with 
 a bang. 
 
 David refused to pardon him unless he promised 
 on wood never to look in that way at the dog again, 
 but Joey said promises were nothing to him when 
 he was short of sausages, and so his wisest course 
 would be to present the dog to David. Oh, the joy 
 of David when he understood that the little dog 
 he had saved was his very own! I can teU you he 
 was now in a hurry to be off before Joey had time 
 to change his mind. 
 
 "All I ask of you," Joey said with a break in 
 his voice, "is to call him after me, and always to 
 give him a sausage, sonny, of a Saturday night." 
 
 There was a quiet dignity about Joey at the 
 end, which showed that he might have risen to high 
 distinction but for his fatal passion. 
 
 The last we saw of him was from the street. He 
 was waving his tongue at us in his attractive, fool- 
 ish way, and Josy was poised on Joeykin's hand 
 like a butterfly that had alighted on a flower. We 
 298 
 
JOEY 
 
 could not exactly see old Joey, but we saw his feet, 
 and so feared the worst. Of course they are not 
 everything they should be, but one can't help 
 liking them. 
 
 2.99 
 
xxni 
 
 PlIiKINGTON's 
 
 \JN attaining the age of eight, or thereabout, 
 children fly away from the Gardens, and never 
 come back. When next you meet them they are 
 ladies and gentlemen holding up their umbrellas 
 to hail a hansom. 
 
 Where the girls go to I know not, to some pri- 
 vate place, I suppose, to put up their hair, but 
 the boys have gone to Pilldngton's. He is a man 
 with a cane. You may not go to PiUdngton's in 
 knickerbockers made by your mother, make she ever 
 so artfully. They must be real knickerbockers. It 
 is his stern rule. Hence the fearful fascination of 
 Pilkington's. 
 
 He may be conceived as one who, baiting his 
 hook with real knickerbockers, fishes all day in the 
 Gardens, which are to him but a pool swarming 
 with small fry. 
 
 Abhorred shade! I know not what manner of 
 300 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 man thou art in the flesh, sir, but figure thee beard- 
 ed and blackavised, and of a lean tortuous habit 
 of body, that moves ever with a swish. Every morn- 
 ing, I swear, thou readest avidly the list of male 
 births in thy paper, and then are thy hands rubbed 
 gloatingly the one upon the other. 'Tis fear of 
 thee and thy gown and thy cane, which are part 
 of thee, that makes the fairies to hide by day ; wert 
 thou to linger but once among their haunts be- 
 tween the hours of Lock-out and Open Gates there 
 would be left not one single gentle place in all the 
 Gardens. The little people would flit. How much 
 wiser they than the small boys who swim glamoured 
 to thy crafty hook. Thou devastator of the Gar- 
 dens, I know thee, Pilkington. 
 
 I first heard of PHkinglon from David, who had 
 it from Oliver Bailey. 
 
 This Oliver Bailey was one of the most dashing 
 figures in the Gardens, and without apparent efi'ort 
 was daily drawing nearer the completion of his 
 seventh year at a time when David seemed unable 
 to get beyond half-past five. I have to speak of 
 him in the past tense, for gone is Oliver from the 
 301 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Gardens (gone to Pilkington's) but he is still a 
 name among us, and some lordly deeds are remem- 
 bered of him, as that his father shaved twice a day. 
 Oliver himself was all on that scale. 
 
 His not ignoble ambition seems always to have 
 been to be wrecked upon an island, indeed I am 
 told that he mentioned it insinuatingly in his 
 prayers, and it was perhaps inevitable that a boy 
 with such an outlook should fascinate David. I am 
 proud, therefore, to be able to state on wood that 
 it was Oliver himself who made the overture. 
 
 On first hearing, from some satellite of Oliver's, 
 of Wrecked Islands, as they are called in the Gar- 
 dens, David said wistfully that he supposed you 
 needed to be very very good before you had any 
 chance of being wrecked, and the remark was con- 
 veyed to Oliver, on whom it made an uncomfortable 
 impression. For a time he tried to evade it, but 
 ultimately David was presented to him and invited 
 gloomily to say it again. The upshot was that 
 Oliver advertised the Gardens of his intention to 
 be good until he was eight, and if he had not been 
 wrecked by that time, to be as jolly bad as a boy 
 302 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 could be. He was naturally so bad that at the 
 Kindergarten Academy, when the mistress ordered 
 whoever had done the last naughty deed to step 
 forward, Oliver's custom had been to step forward, 
 not necessarily because he had done it, but because 
 he presumed he very hkely had. 
 
 The friendship of the two dated from this time, 
 and at first I thought Oliver discovered generosity 
 in hasting to David as to an equal ; he also walked 
 hand in hand with him, and even reproved him for 
 delinquencies like a loving elder brother. But 'tis 
 a gray world even in the Gardens, for I found that 
 a new arrangement had been made which reduced 
 Oliver to life-size. He had wearied of well-doing, 
 and passed it on, so to speak, to his friend. In 
 other words, on David now devolved the task of 
 being good until he was eight, while Oliver clung 
 to him so closely that the one could not be wrecked 
 without the other. 
 
 When this was made known to me it was already 
 
 too late to break the speU of Oliver, David was 
 
 top-heavy with pride in him, and, faith, I began 
 
 to find myself very much in the cold, for Oliver 
 
 303 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 was frankly bored by me and even David seemed 
 to think it would be convenient if I went and sat 
 with Irene. Am I affecting to laugh? I was really 
 distressed and lonely, and rather bitter; and how 
 humble I became. Sometimes when the dog Joey 
 is unable, by frisking, to induce Porthos to play 
 with him, he stands on his hind legs and begs it of 
 him, and I do believe I was sometimes as humble as 
 Joey. Then David would insist on my being suf- 
 fered to join them, but it was plain that he had 
 no real occasion for me. 
 
 It was an unheroic trouble, and I despised my- 
 self. For years I had been fighting Mary for 
 David, and had not whoUy failed though she was 
 advantaged by the accident of relationship ; was I 
 now to be knocked out so easily by a seven year 
 old.'' I reconsidered my weapons, and I fought Oli- 
 ver and beat him. Figure to yourself those two 
 boys become as faithful to me as my coat-tails. 
 
 With wrecked islands I did it. I began in the 
 
 most unpretentious way by telling them a story 
 
 which might last an hour, and favoured by many 
 
 an unexpected wind it lasted eighteen months. It 
 
 304 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 started as the wreck of the simple Swiss family 
 who looked up and saw the butter tree, but soon a 
 glorious inspiration of the night turned it into the 
 wreck of David A — and Oliver Bailey. At first it 
 was what they were to do when they were wrecked, 
 but imperceptibly it became what they had done. 
 I spent much of my time staring reflectively at 
 the titles of the boys' stories in the booksellers' 
 windows, whistling for a breeze, so to say, for I 
 found that the titles were even more helpful than 
 the stories. We wrecked everybody of note, includ- 
 ing all Homer's most taking characters and the 
 hero of Paradise Lost. But we suffered them not 
 to land. We stripped them of what we wanted and 
 left them to wander the high seas naked of advent- 
 ure. And all this was merely the beginning. 
 
 By this time I had been cast upon the island. It 
 was not my own proposal, but David knew my 
 wishes, and he made it all right for me with Oliver. 
 They found me among the breakers with a large 
 dog, which had kept me afloat throughout that 
 terrible night. I was the sole survivor of the ill- 
 fated Aima Pmk. So exhausted was I that they had 
 ?0$ 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 to carry me to their hut, and great was my grati- 
 tude when on opening my eyes, I found myself 
 in that romantic edifice instead of in Davy Jones's 
 locker. As we walked in the Gardens I told them 
 of the hut they had built; and they were inflated 
 but not surprised. On the other hand they looked 
 for surprise from me. 
 
 "Did we teU you about the turtle we turned 
 on its back?" asked Oliver, reverting to deeds of 
 theirs of which I had previously told them. 
 
 "You did." 
 
 "Who turned it.''" demanded David, not as one 
 who needed information but after the manner of 
 a schoolmaster. 
 
 "It was turned," I said, "by David A — , the 
 younger of the two youths." 
 
 "Who made the monkeys fling cocoa-nuts at 
 him?" asked the older of the two youths. 
 
 "Oliver Bailey," I replied. 
 
 "Was it Oliver," asked David sharply, "that 
 found the cocoa-nut-tree first?" 
 
 "On the contrary," I answered, "it was first ob- 
 served by David, who immediately climbed it, re- 
 306 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 marking, 'This is certainly the cocos-imcifera, for, 
 see, dear Oliver, the slender columns supporting 
 the crown of leaves which fall with a grace that 
 no art can imitate.' " 
 
 "That's what I said," remarked David with a 
 wave of his hand. 
 
 "I said things like that, too," Oliver insisted. 
 
 "No, you didn't then," said David. 
 
 "Yes, I did so." 
 
 "No, you didn't so." 
 
 "Shut up." 
 
 "Well, then, let's hear one you said." 
 
 Oliver looked appealingly at me. "The follow- 
 ing," I announced, "is one that Oliver said : 'Truly 
 dear comrade, though the perils of these happen- 
 ings are great, and our privations calculated to 
 break the stoutest heart, yet to be rewarded by such 
 fair sights I would endure still greater trials and 
 still rejoice even as the bird on yonder bough.' " 
 
 "That's one I said !" crowed Oliver. 
 
 "I shot the bird," said David instantly. 
 
 "What bird.?" 
 
 "The yonder bird." 
 
 307 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "No, you didn't." 
 
 "Did I not shoot the bird?" 
 
 "It was David who shot the bird," I said, "but 
 it was Oliver who saw by its multi-coloured plum- 
 age that it was one of the PsittacidcE, an excellent 
 substitute for partridge." 
 
 "You didn't see that," said Oliver, raider 
 swollen. 
 
 "Yes, I did." 
 
 "What did you see?" 
 
 "I saw that." 
 
 "What.?" 
 
 "You shut up." 
 
 "David shot it," I summed up, "and Oliver 
 knew its name, but I ate it. Do you remember how 
 hungry I was ?" 
 
 "Rather!" said David. 
 
 "I cooked it," said Oliver. 
 
 "It was served up on toast," I reminded them. 
 
 "I toasted it," said David. 
 
 "Toast from the bread-fruit-tree," I said, 
 "which (as you both remarked simultaneously) 
 bears two and sometimes three crops in a year, and 
 808 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 also affords a serviceable gum for the pitching of 
 canoes." 
 
 "I pitched mine best," said Oliver. 
 
 "I pitched mine farthest," said David. 
 
 "And when I had finished my repast," said I, 
 "you amazed me by handing me a cigar from the 
 tobacco-plant," 
 
 "I handed it," said Oliver. 
 
 "I snicked off the end," said David. 
 
 "And then," said I, "you gave me a light." 
 
 "Which of us.''" they cried together. 
 
 "Both of you," I said. "Never shall I forget my 
 amazement when I saw you get that light by rub- 
 bing two sticks together." 
 
 At this they waggled their heads. "You couldn't 
 have done it !" said David. 
 
 "No, David," I admitted, "I can't do it, but 
 of course I know that all wrecked boys do it quite 
 easily. Show me how you did it." 
 
 But after consulting apart they agreed not to 
 ishow me. I was not shown everything. 
 
 David was now firmly convinced that he had 
 once hwn wrecked on an island, while Oliver passed 
 309 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 his days in dubiety. They used to argue it out t,{y 
 gether and among their friends. As I unfolded 
 the story Ohver listened with an open knife in his 
 hand, and David who was not allowed to have a 
 knife wore a pirate-string round his waist. Irene 
 in her usual interfering way objected to this bauble 
 and dropped disparaging remarks about wrecked 
 islands which were little to her credit. I was for 
 defying her, but David, who had the knack of 
 women, knew a better way; he craftily proposed 
 that we "should let Irene in," in short, should 
 wreck her, and though I objected, she proved a 
 great success and recognised the yucca fUamentosa 
 by its long narrow leaves the very day she joined 
 us. ITiereafter we had no more scoflBng from 
 Irene, who listened to the story as hotly as any- 
 body. 
 
 This encouraged us in time to let in David's 
 father and mother, though they never knew it un- 
 less he told them, as I have no doubt he did. They 
 were admitted primarily to gratify David, who was 
 very soft-hearted and knew that while he was on 
 the island they must be missing him very much at 
 310 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 home. So we let them in, and there was no part of 
 the story he liked better than that which told of 
 the joyous meeting. We were in need of another 
 woman at any rate, someone more romantic look- 
 ing than Irene, and Mary, I can assure her now, 
 had a busy time of it. She was constantly being 
 carried off by cannibals, and David became quite 
 an adept at plucking her from the very pot itself 
 and springing from cUff to cUff with his lovely 
 btirden in his arms. There was seldom a Saturday 
 in which David did not kill his man. 
 
 I shall now provide the proof that David be- 
 lieved it all to be as true as true. It was told me by 
 Oliver, who had it from our hero himself. I had 
 described to them how the savages had tattooed 
 David's father, and Oliver informed me that one 
 night shortly afterward David was discovered 
 softly lifting the blankets off his father's legs to 
 have a look at the birdsi and reptiles etched 
 thereon. 
 
 Thus many months passed with no word of Pil- 
 kington, and you may be asking where he was all 
 this time. Ah, my friends, he was very busy fishing, 
 311 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 though I was as yet unaware of his existence. Most 
 suddenly I heard the whirr of his hated reel, as 
 he struck a fish. I remember that grim day with 
 painful vividness, it was a wet day, indeed I think 
 it has rained for me more or less ever since. As soon 
 as they joined me I saw from the manner of the 
 two boys that they had something to communicate. 
 Oliver nudged David and retired a few paces, 
 whereupon David said to me solemnly, 
 
 "Oliver is going to Pilkington's." 
 
 I immediately perceived that it was some school, 
 but so little did I understand the import of David's 
 remark that I called out jocularly, "I hope he won't 
 swish you, Oliver." 
 
 Evidently I had pained both of than, for they 
 exchanged glances and retired for consultation be- 
 hind a tree, whence David returned to say with 
 emphasis, 
 
 "He has two jackets and two shirts and two 
 knidcerbockers, oH real ones." 
 
 "Well done, Oliver!" said I, but it was the 
 wrong thing again, and once more they dis- 
 appeared behind the tree. Evidently they decided 
 312 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 that the time for plain speaking was come, for now 
 David announced bluntly : 
 
 "He wants you not to call him Oliver any 
 longer." 
 
 "What shaU I call him?" 
 
 "Bailey." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "He's going to Pilkington's. And he can't play 
 with us any more after next Saturday." 
 
 "Why not.?" 
 
 "He's going to Pilkington's." 
 
 So now I knew the law about the thing, and we 
 moved on together, Oliver stretching himself con- 
 sciously, and methought that even David walked 
 with a sedater air. 
 
 "David," said I, with a sinking, "are you going 
 to Pilkington's?" 
 
 ^'When I am eight," he rephed. 
 
 "And sha'n't I call you David then, and won't 
 you play with me in the Gardens any more?" 
 
 He looked at Bailey, and Bailey signalled him 
 to be firm. 
 
 "Oh, no," said David cheerily. 
 313 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Thus sharply did I learn how much longer I 
 was to have of him. Strange that a little boy can 
 give so much pain. I dropped his hand and walked 
 on in silence, and presently I did my most churlish 
 to hurt him by ending the story abruptly in a 
 very cruel way. "Ten years have elapsed," said I, 
 "since I last spoke, and our two heroes, now gay 
 young men, are revisiting the wrecked island of 
 their childhood. 'Did we wreck ourselves,' said one, 
 'or was there someone to help us?' And the other 
 who was the younger, replied, 'I think there was 
 someone to help us, a man with a dog. I think he 
 used to tell me stories in the Kensington Gardens, 
 but I forget all about him; I don't remember even 
 his name.' " 
 
 This tame ending bored Bailey, and he drifted 
 away from us, but David still walked by my side, 
 and he was grown so quiet that I knew a storm was 
 brewing. Suddenly he flashed lightning on me. "It's 
 not true," he cried, "it's a lie !" He gripped my 
 hand. "I sha'n't never forget you, father." 
 
 Strange that a little boy can give so much 
 pleasure. 
 
 314 
 
PILKINGTON'S 
 
 Yet I could go on. "You will forget, David, but 
 there was once a boy who would have remembered." 
 
 "Timothy.?" said he at once. He thinks Timothy 
 was a real boy, and is very jealous of him. He 
 turned his back to me, and stood alone and wept 
 passionately, while I waited for him. You may be 
 sure I begged his pardon, and made it all right 
 with him, and had him laughing and happy again 
 before I let him go. But nevertheless what I said 
 was true. David is not my boy, and he will forget. 
 But Timothy would have remembered. 
 
 315 
 
XXIV 
 
 BAB.BABA 
 
 Another shock was waiting for me farther 
 down the story. 
 
 For we had resumed our adventures, though we 
 seldom saw Bailey now. At long intervals we met 
 him on our way to or from the Gardens, and, if 
 there was none from Pilkington's to mark him, 
 methought he looked at us somewhat longingly, 
 as if beneath his real knickerbockers a morsel of 
 the egg-sheD. still adhered. Otherwise he gave David 
 a not unfriendly kick in passing, and called him 
 "youngster." That was about all. 
 
 When Oliver disappeared from the life of the 
 Gardens we had lofted him out of the story, and 
 did very well without him, extending our operations 
 to the mainland, where they were on so vast a scale 
 that we were rapidly depopulating the earth. And 
 then said David one day, 
 
 "Shall we let Barbara in?" 
 316 
 
BARBARA 
 
 We had occasionally considered the giving of 
 Bailey's place to some other child of the Gardens, 
 divers of David's year having sought election, even 
 with bribes ; but Barbara was new to me. 
 
 "Who is she?" I asked. 
 
 "She's my sister." 
 
 You may imagine how I gaped. 
 
 "She hasn't come yet," David said lightly, "but 
 she's coming." 
 
 I was shocked, not perhaps so much shocked as 
 disillusioned, for though I had always suspicioned 
 
 Mary A as one who harboured the craziest 
 
 ambitions when she looked most humble, of such 
 presumption as this I had never thought her 
 capable. 
 
 I wandered across the Broad Walk to have a look 
 at Irene, and she was wearing an unmistakable 
 air. It set me reflecting about Mary's husband and 
 his manner the last time we met, for though I have 
 had no opportunity to say so, we stiU meet now 
 and again, and he has even dined with me at the 
 club. On these occasions the subject of Timothy 
 317 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 is barred, and if by any unfortunate accident 
 Mary's name is mentioned, we immediately look op- 
 posite ways and a silence follows, in which I feel 
 sure he is smiling, and wonder what the deuce he 
 is smiling at. I remembered now that I had last 
 seen him when I was dining with him at his club 
 (for he is become member of a club of painter fel- 
 lows, and Mary is so proud of this that she has 
 had it printed on his card), when undoubtedly he 
 had looked preoccupied. It had been the look, I 
 saw now, of one who shared a guilty secret. 
 
 As all was thus suddenly revealed to me I 
 laughed unpleasantly at myself, for, on my soul, 
 I had been thinking well of Mary of late. Always 
 foolishly inflated about David, she had been grudg- 
 ing him even to me during these last weeks, and I 
 had forgiven her, putting it down to a mother's 
 love. I knew from the poor boy of unwonted treats 
 she had been giving him; I had seen her embrace 
 him furtively in a public place, her every act, in so 
 far as they were known to me, had been a challenge 
 to whoever dare assert that she wanted anyone but 
 David. How could I, not being a woman, have 
 318 
 
BARBARA 
 
 guessed that she was really saying good-bye to 
 him? 
 
 Reader, picture to yourself that simple little boy 
 playing about the house at this time, on the under- 
 standing that everything was going on as usual. 
 Have not his toys acquired a new pathos, especially 
 the engine she bought him yesterday? 
 
 Did you look him in the face, Mary, as you gave 
 him that engine? I envy you not your feelings, 
 ma'am, when with loving arms he wrapped you 
 round for it. That childish confidence of his to me, 
 in which unwittingly he betrayed you, Indicates 
 that at laist you have been preparing him for the 
 great change, and I suppose you are capable of re- 
 plying to me that David is still happy, and even in- 
 terested. But does he know from you what it really 
 means to him? Rather, I do believe, you are one 
 who would not scruple to give him to understand 
 that B (which you may yet find stands for Benja- 
 min) Is primarily a gift for him. In your heart, 
 ma'am, what do you think of this tricking of a 
 little boy? 
 
 Suppose David had known what was to happen 
 319 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 before he came to you, are you sure he would have 
 come? Undoubtedly there is an unwritten compact 
 in such matters between a mother and her first- 
 bom, and I desire to point out to you that he never 
 breaks it. Again, what will the other boys say when 
 they know? You are outside the criticism of the 
 Gardens, but David is not. Faith, madam, I believe 
 you would have been kinder to wait and let him 
 run the gauntlet at PiDcington's. 
 
 You think your husband is a great man now 
 because they are beginning to talk of his fore- 
 grounds and middle distances in the newspaper 
 colmnns that nobody reads. I know you have 
 bought him a velvet coat, and that he has taken a 
 large, airy and commodious studio in Mews Laiie, 
 where you are to be found in a soft material on 
 first and third Wednesdays. Times are changing, 
 but shall I tell you a story here, just to let you 
 see that I am acquainted with it? 
 
 Three years ago a certain gallery accepted from 
 
 a certain artist a picture which he and his wife 
 
 knew to be monstrous fine. But no one spoke of 
 
 the picture, no one wrote of jt, and no one made 
 
 ?20 
 
BARBARA 
 
 an offer for It. Crushed was the artist, sorry for 
 the denseness of connoisseurs was his wife, till the 
 work was bought by a dealer for an anonymous 
 client, and then elated were they both, and relieved 
 also to discover that I was not the buyer. He came 
 to me at once to make sure of this, and remained 
 to walk the floor gloriously as he told me what 
 recognition means to gentlemen of the artistic 
 callings. O, the happy boy ! 
 
 But months afterward, rummaging at his home 
 In a closet that is usually kept locked, he discovered 
 the picture, there hidden away. His wife backed 
 into a comer and made trembling confession. How 
 could she submit to see her dear's masterpiece ig- 
 nored by the idiot public, and her dear himself 
 plunged Into gloom thereby.'' She knew as well as 
 he (for had they not been married for years. J" ) 
 how the artistic instinct hungers for recognition, 
 and so with her savings she bought the great work 
 anonymously and stored it away in a closet. At 
 first, I believe, the man raved furiously, but by-and- 
 by he was on his knees at the feet of this Httle 
 darling. You know who she was, Mary, but, bless 
 321 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 me, I seem to be praising you, and that was not 
 the enterprise on which I set out. What I intended 
 to convey was that though you can now venture on 
 small extravagances, you seem to be going too fast. 
 Look at it how one may, this Barbara idea is un- 
 doubtedly a bad business. 
 
 How to be even with her? I cast about for a 
 means, and on my lucky day I did conceive my 
 final triumph over Mary, at which I have scarcely 
 as yet dared to hint, lest by discovering it I should 
 spoil my plot. For there has been a plot all the time. 
 
 For long I had known that Mary contemplated 
 the writing of a book, my informant being David, 
 who, because I have published a Httle volume on 
 Military tactics, and am preparing a larger one 
 on the same subject (which I shall never finish), 
 likes to watch my methods of composition, how I 
 dip, and so on, his desire being to help her. He 
 may have done this on his own initiative, but it is 
 also quite possible that in her desperation she urged 
 him to it; he certainly implied that she had taken 
 to book-writing because it must be easy if I could 
 do it. She also informed him (very inconsiderate- 
 323 
 
BARBARA 
 
 ly), that I did not print my books myself, and this 
 lowered me in the eyes of David, for it was for the 
 printing he had admired me and boasted of me in 
 the Gardens. 
 
 "I suppose you didn't make the boxes neither, 
 nor yet the labels," he said to me in the voice of 
 one shorn of belief in everything. 
 
 I should say here that my literary labours are 
 abstruse, the token whereof is many rows of boxes 
 nailed against my walls, each labelled with a letter 
 of the alphabet. When I take a note in ^, I drop 
 it into the A box, and so on, much to the satis- 
 faction of David, who likes to drop them in for 
 me. I had now to admit that Wheeler & Gibb made 
 the boxes. 
 
 "But I made the labels myself, David." 
 
 "They are not so well made as the boxes," he 
 replied. 
 
 Thus I had reason to wish ill to Mary's work of 
 imagination, as I presumed it to be, and I said to 
 him with easy brutahty, "Tell her about the boxes, 
 David, and that no one can begin a book until they 
 are all full. That will frighten her." 
 323 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 Soon thereafter he announced to me that she 
 had got a box. 
 
 "One box!" I said with a sneer. 
 
 "She made it herself," retorted David hotly. 
 
 I got little real information from him about the 
 work, partly because David loses his footing when 
 he descends to the practical, and perhaps still more 
 because he found me unsympathetic. But when he 
 blurted out the title, "The Little White Bird," I 
 was like one who had read the book to its last page. 
 I knew at once that the white bird was the httle 
 daughter Mary would fain have had. Somehow I 
 had always known that she would like to have a 
 little daughter, she was that kind of woman, and 
 so long as she had the modesty to see that she 
 could not have one, I sympathised with her deeply, 
 whatever I may have said about her book to David. 
 
 In those days Mary had the loveliest ideas for 
 her sad little book, and they came to her mostly 
 in the morning when she was only three-parts 
 awake, but as she stepped out of bed they aU flew 
 away like startled birds. I gathered from David 
 that this depressed her exceedingly. 
 
bahbara 
 
 Oh, Mary, your thoughts are much too prettj^ 
 and holy to show themselves to anyone but your- 
 self. The shy things are hiding within you. If 
 they could come into the open they would not be 
 a book, they would be little Barbara. 
 
 But that was not the message I sent her. "She 
 will never be able to write it," I explained to 
 David. "She has not the ability. Tell her I said 
 that." 
 
 I remembered now that for many months I had 
 heard nothing of her ambitious project, so I ques- 
 tioned David and discovered that it was abandoned. 
 He could not say why, nor was it necessary that 
 he should, the trivial little reason was at once so 
 plain to me. From that moment aU my sympathy 
 with Mary was spilled, and I searched for some 
 means of exulting over her until I found it. It was 
 this. I decided, unknown even to David, to write 
 the book "The Little White Bird," of which she 
 had proved herself incapable, and then when, in 
 the fulness of time, she held her baby on high, 
 implying that she had done a big thing, I was to 
 hold up the book. I venture to think that such a 
 325 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 devilish revenge was never before planned and 
 carried out. 
 
 Yes, carried out, for this is the book, rapidly 
 approaching completion. She and I are running a 
 neck-and-neck race. 
 
 I have also once more brought the story of 
 David's adventures to an abrupt end. "And it really 
 is the end this time, David," I said severely. (I 
 always say that.) 
 
 It ended on the coast of Patagonia, whither we 
 had gone to shoot the great Sloth, known to be 
 the largest of animals, though we found his size 
 to have been under-estimated. David, his father and 
 I had flung our limbs upon the beach and were 
 having a last pipe before turning in, while Mary, 
 attired in barbaric splendour, sang and danced 
 before us. It was a lovely evening, and we lolled 
 manlike, gazing, well-content, at the pretty creat- 
 ure. 
 
 The night was absolutely still save for the roar- 
 ing of the Sloths in the distance. 
 
 By-and-by Irene came to the entrance of our 
 cave, where by the light of her torch we could see 
 326 
 
BARBARA 
 
 her exjdoring a shark that had been harpooned by 
 David earlier in the day. 
 
 Everything conduced to repose, and a feeling 
 of gentle peace crept over us, from which we were 
 roused by a shrill cry. It was uttered by Irene, 
 who came speeding to us, bearing certain articles, 
 a watch, a pair of boots, a newspaper, which she 
 had discovered in the interior of the shark. What 
 was our surprise to find in the newspaper intelli- 
 gence of the utmost importance to all of us. It 
 was nothing less than this, the birth of a new baby 
 in London to Mary. 
 
 How strange a method had Solomon chosen of 
 sending us the news. 
 
 The bald announcement at once plunged us into 
 a fever of excitement, and next morning we set 
 sail for England. Soon we came within sight of 
 the white cliffs of Albion. Mary could not sit 
 down for a moment, so hot was she to see her 
 child. She paced the deck in uncontrollable a^ta- 
 tion. 
 
 "So did I!" cried David, when I had reached 
 this point in the story. 
 
 327 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 On arriving at the docks we immediately hailed 
 a cab. 
 
 "Never, David," I said, "shall I forget your 
 mother's excitement. She kept putting her head out 
 of the window and calling to the cabby to go 
 quicker, quicker. How he lashed his horse ! At last 
 he drew up at your house, and then your mother, 
 springing out, flew up the steps and beat with 
 her hands upon the door." 
 
 David was quite carried away by the reality of 
 it. "Father has the key !" he screamed. 
 
 "He opened the door," I said grandly, "and yoiu: 
 mother rushed in, and next moment her Benjamin 
 was in her arms." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "Barbara," corrected David. 
 
 "Benjamin," said I doggedly. 
 
 "Is that a girl's name?" 
 
 "No, it's a boy's name." 
 
 "But motiier wants a girl," he said, very much 
 shaken. 
 
 "Just like her presumption," I replied testily. 
 "It is to be a boy, David, and you can tell her I 
 said so." 
 
 328 
 
BARBARA 
 
 He was in a deplorable but most unselfish s^tate 
 of mind. A boy would have suited him quite well, 
 but he put self aside altogether and was pertina- 
 ciously solicitous that Mary should be given her 
 fancy. 
 
 "Barbara," he repeatedly implored me. 
 
 "Benjamin," I replied firmly. 
 
 For long I was obdurate, but the time was sum- 
 mer, and at last I agreed to play him for it, a two- 
 innings match. If he won it was to be a girl, and if 
 I won it was to be a boy. 
 
 S29 
 
XXV 
 
 THE CRICKET MATCH 
 
 X THINK there has not been so much on a cricket 
 match since the day when Sir Horace Mann walked 
 about Broad Ha'penny agitatedly cutting down 
 the daisies with his stick. And, be it remembered, 
 the heroes of Hambledon played for money and 
 renown only, while David was champion of a lady. 
 A lady! May we not prettily say of two ladies? 
 There were no spectators of our contest except now 
 and again some loiterer in the Gardens who little 
 thought what was the stake for which we played, 
 but cannot we conceive Barbara standing at the 
 ropes and agitatedly cutting down the daisies 
 every time David missed the ball? I teU you, this 
 was the historic match of the Gardens. 
 
 David wanted to play on a pitch near the Round 
 
 Pond with which he is familiar, but this would 
 
 have placed me at a disadvantage, so I insisted 
 
 on unaccustomed ground, and we finally pitched 
 
 330 
 
THE CRICKET MATCH 
 
 stumps In the Figs. We could not exactly pitch 
 stumps, for they are forbidden In the Gardens, but 
 there are trees here and there which have chalk- 
 marks on them throughout the summer, and when 
 you take up your position with a bat near one of 
 these you have really pitched stumps. The tree we 
 selected Is a ragged yew which consists of a broken 
 trunk and one branch, and I viewed the ground 
 with secret satisfaction, for It falls slightly at about 
 four yards' distance from the tree, and this exactly 
 suits my style of bowling. 
 
 I won the toss and after examining the wicket 
 decided to take first knock. As a rule when we play 
 the wit at first flows free, but on this occasion I 
 strode to the crease In an almost eerie silence. 
 David had taken off his blouse and rolled up his 
 shirt-sleeves, and his teeth were set, so I knew he 
 would begin by sending me down some fast ones. 
 
 His delivery Is underarm and not Inelegant, but 
 he sometimes tries a round-arm ball, which I have 
 seen double up the fielder at square leg. He has not 
 a good length, but he varies his action bewilder- 
 Ingly, and has one especially teasing ball which 
 331 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 falls from the branches just as you have stepped 
 out of your ground to look for it. It was not, how- 
 ever, with his teaser that he bowled me that day. 
 I had notched a three and two singles, when he 
 sent me down a medium to fast which got me in 
 two minds and I played back to it too late. Now, 
 I am seldom out on a really grassy wicket for such 
 a meagre score, and as David and I changed places 
 without a word, there was a cheery look on his face 
 that I found very galling. He ran in to my second 
 ball and cut it neatly to the on for a single, and 
 off my fifth and sixth he had two pretty drives 
 for three, both behind the wicket. This, however, 
 as I hoped, proved the undoing of him, for he 
 now hit out confidently at everything, and with 
 his score at nine I beat him with my shooter. 
 
 The look was now on my face. 
 
 I opened my second innings by treating him 
 with uncommon respect, for I knew that his little 
 arm soon tired if he was unsuccessful, and then 
 when he sent me loose ones I banged him to the 
 railings. What cared I though David's lips were 
 twitching:. 
 
 332 
 
THE CRICKET MATCH 
 
 When he ultimately got post my defence, with 
 a jumpy one which broke awkwardly from the off, 
 I had fetched twenty-three so that he needed 
 twenty to win, a longer hand than he had ever 
 yet made. As I gave him the bat he looked brave, 
 but something wet fell on my hand, and then a 
 sudden fear seized me lest David should not win. 
 
 At the very outset, however, he seemed to master 
 the bowling, and soon fetched about ten runs in 
 a classic manner. Then I tossed him a Yorker which 
 he missed and it went off at a tangent as soon as 
 it had reached the tree. "Not out," I cried hastily, 
 for the face he turned to me was terrible. 
 
 Soon thereafter another incident happened, 
 which I shall always recall with pleasure. He had 
 caught the ball too high on the bat, and I just 
 missed the catch. "Dash it all!" said I irritably, 
 and was about to resume bowling, when I noticed 
 that he was unhappy. He hesitated, took up his 
 position at the wicket, and then came to me man- 
 fully. "I am a cad," he said in distress, "for when 
 the ball was in the air I prayed." He had prayed 
 that I should miss the catch, and as I think I have 
 S33 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 already told you, it is considered unfair in the 
 Gardens to pray for victory. 
 
 My splendid David ! He has the faults of other 
 little boys, but he has a noble sense of fairness. 
 "We shall call it a no-ball, David," I said gravely. 
 
 I suppose the suspense of the reader is now pain- 
 ful, and therefore I shall say at once that David 
 won the match with two lovely fours, the one over 
 my head and the other to leg all along the ground. 
 When I came back from fielding this last ball I 
 found him embracing his bat, and to my sour con- 
 gratulations he could at first reply only with hys- 
 terical sounds. But soon he was pelting home to lu9 
 mother with the glorious news. 
 
 And that is how we let Barbara in. 
 
 934 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE DEDICATION 
 
 XT was only yesterday afternoon, dear reader, ex- 
 actly three weeks after the birth of Barbara, that 
 I finished the book, and even then it was not quite 
 finished, for there remained the dedication, at which 
 I set to elatedly. I think I have never enjoyed my- 
 self more; indeed, it is my opinion that I wrote 
 the book as an excuse for writing the dedication. 
 
 "Madam" (I wrote wittily), "I have no desire 
 to exult over you, yet I should show a lamentable 
 obtuseness to the irony of things were I not to 
 dedicate this little work to you. For its inception 
 was yours, and in your more ambitious days you 
 thought to write the tale of the little white bird 
 yourself. Why you so early deserted the nest is 
 not for me to inquire. It now appears that you were 
 otherwise occupied. In fine, madam, you chose the 
 lower road, and contented yourself with obtaining 
 the Bird. May I point out, by presenting you with 
 335 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 this dedication, that in the meantime I am be- 
 come the parent of the Book? To you the shadow, 
 to me the substance. Trusting that you will accept 
 my little offering in a Christian spirit, I am, dear 
 madam," etc. 
 
 It was heady work, for the saucy words showed 
 their design plainly through the varnish, and I was 
 re-reading in an ecstasy, when, without warning, 
 the door burst open and a little boy entered, drag- 
 ging in a faltering lady. 
 
 "Father," said David, "this is mother." 
 Having thus briefly introduced us, he turned his 
 attention to the electric light, and switched it on 
 and off so rapidly that, as was very fitting, Mary 
 and I may be said to have met for the first time 
 to the accompaniment of flashes of lightning. I 
 think she was arrayed in little blue feathers, but if 
 such a costume is not seemly, I swear there were, 
 at least, little blue feathers in her too coquettish 
 cap, and that she was carrying a muff to match. 
 No part of a woman is more dangerous than her 
 muff, and as muffs are not worn in early autumn, 
 even by invalids, I saw in a twinl, that she ha3 
 336 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 put on all her pretty things to wheedle me. I am 
 also of opinion that she remembered she had worn 
 blue in the days when I watched her from the dub- 
 window. Undoubtedly Mary is an engaging little 
 creature, though not my style. She was paler than 
 is her wont, and had the touching look of one whom 
 it would be easy to break. I daresay this was a trick. 
 Her skirts made music in my room, but perhaps 
 this was only because no lady had ever rustled in 
 it before. It was disquieting to me to reflect that 
 despite her obvious uneasiness, she was a very artful 
 woman. 
 
 With the quickness of David at the switch, I 
 slipped a blotting-pad over the dedication, and 
 then, "Pray be seated," I said coldly, but she re- 
 mained standing, all in a twitter and very much' 
 afraid of me, and I know that her hands were 
 pressed together within the muff. Had there been 
 any dignified means of escape, I think we would 
 both have taken it. 
 
 "I should not have come," she said nervously, 
 and then seemed to wait for some response, so I 
 bowed. 
 
 387 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "I was terrified to come, indeed I was," she as- 
 sured me with obvious sincerity. 
 
 "But I have come," she finished rather baldly. 
 
 "It is an epitome, ma'am," said I, seeing my 
 chance, "of your whole Hfe," and with that I put 
 her into my elbow-chair. 
 
 She began to talk of my adventures with David 
 in the Gardens, and of some Httle things I have 
 not mentioned here, that I may have done for her 
 when I was in a wayward mood, and her voice was 
 as soft as her muff. She had also an affecting way 
 of pronouncing aU her r's as w's, just as the fairies 
 do. "And so," she said, "as you would not come to 
 me to be thanked, I have come to you to thank 
 you." Whereupon she thanked me most abomi- 
 nably. She also sUd one of her hands out of the muff, 
 and though she was smiling her eyes were wet. 
 
 "Pooh, ma'am," said I in desperation, but I did 
 not take her hand. 
 
 "I am not very strong yet," she said with low 
 
 cunning. She said this to make me take her hand, 
 
 so I took it, and perhaps I patted it a Httle. Then 
 
 I walked brusquely to the window. The truth 
 
 338 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 is, I begun to think uncomfortably of the dedica- 
 tion. 
 
 I went to the window because, undoubtedly, it 
 would be easier to address her severely from behind, 
 and I wanted to say something that would sting 
 her. 
 
 "When you have quite done, ma'am," I said, 
 after a long pause, "perhaps you will allow me to 
 say a word." 
 
 I could see the back of her head only, but I knew, 
 from David's face, that she had given him a quick 
 look which did not imply that she was stung. In- 
 deed I felt now, as I had felt before, that though 
 she was agitated and in some fear of me, she was 
 also enjoying herself considerably. 
 
 In such circumstances I might as well have tried 
 to sting a sand-bank, so I said, rather off my 
 watch, "If I have done all this for you, why did 
 I do it?" 
 
 She made no answer in words, but seemed to grow 
 
 taller in the chair, so that I could see her shoulders, 
 
 and I knew from this that she was now holding 
 
 herself conceitedly and trying to look modest. "Not 
 
 339 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 a bit of it, ma'am," said I sharply, "that was not 
 the reason at all." 
 
 I was pleased to see her whisk round, rather in- 
 dignant at last. 
 
 "I never said it was," she retorted with spirit, 
 "I never thought for a moment that it was." She 
 added, a trifle too late in the story, "Besides, I 
 don't know what you are talking of." 
 
 I think I must have smiled here, for she turned 
 from me quickly, and became quite little in the 
 chair again. 
 
 "David," said I mercilessly, "did you ever see 
 your mother blush.?" 
 
 "What is blush?" 
 
 "She goes a beautiful pink colour." 
 
 David, who had by this time broken my con- 
 nection with the head office, crossed to his mother 
 expectantly. 
 
 "I don't, David," she cried. 
 
 "I think," said I, "she will do it now," and with 
 
 the instinct of a gentleman I looked away. Thus I 
 
 cannot tell what happened, but presently David 
 
 exclaimed admiringly, "Oh, mother, do it again!" 
 
 340 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 As she would not, he stood on the fender to see 
 in the mantel-glass whether he could do it him- 
 self, and then Mary turned a most candid face on 
 me, in which was maternity rather than reproach. 
 Perhaps no look given by woman to man affects 
 him quite so much. "You see," she said radiantly 
 and with a gesture that disclosed herself to me, "I 
 can forgive even that. You long ago earned the 
 right to hurt me if you want to." 
 
 It weaned me of all further desire to rail at 
 Mary, and I felt an uncommon drawing to her. 
 
 » 
 she went on, with an unsteady smile. 
 
 "Think what?" I asked, but without the neces- 
 sary snap. 
 
 "What we were talking of," she replied winc- 
 ing, but forgiving me again. "If I once thought 
 that, it was pretty to me while it lasted and it 
 lasted but a little time. I have long been sure 
 that your kindness to me was due to soiie other 
 reason." 
 
 "Ma'am," said I very honestly, "I know not what 
 was the reason. My concern for you was in the 
 341 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 beginning a very fragile and even a selfish thing, 
 yet not altogether selfish, fcH" I think that what 
 first stirred it was the joyous sway of the little 
 nursery govem^s as she walked down Pall Mall 
 to meet her lover. It seemed such a mighty fine 
 thing to you to be loved that I thoa^t you had 
 better continue to be loved for a little longer. And 
 perhaps having hdped you once by dropping a 
 letter I was charmed by ilie ease with which you 
 could be helped, for you must know that I am one 
 who has chosen the easy way for more than twenty 
 years." 
 
 She shook her head and smiled. "On my soul," 
 I assured her, "I can thivik of no oAiber reason." 
 
 "A kind heart," said she. 
 
 "More likely a whim," said L 
 
 "Or another woman," said she. 
 
 I was very much taken aback. 
 
 "More than twenty years ago," she said witii 
 a soft huskiness in her voice, and a tremor and a 
 sweetness, as if she did not know that in twenty 
 years all love stcmes are grown mouldy. 
 
 On my honour as a soldier this explanaidcn of 
 34S 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 my early solicitude for Mary was one that had 
 never struck me, but the more I pondered it now — . 
 I raised her hand and touched it with my lips, as we 
 whimsical old fellows do when some gracious girl 
 makes us to hear the key in the lock of long ago. 
 "Why, ma'am," I said, "it is a pretty notion, and 
 there may be something in it. Let us leave it at 
 that." 
 
 But there was still that accursed dedication, ly- 
 ing, you remember, beneath the blotting-pad. I had 
 no longer any desire to crush her with it. I wished 
 that she had succeeded in writing the book on which 
 her longings had been so set. 
 
 "If only you had been less ambitious," I said, 
 much troubled that she should be disappointed in 
 her heart's desire. 
 
 "I wanted all the dear delicious things," she ad- 
 mitted contritely. 
 
 "It was unreasonable," I said eagerly, appealing 
 to her intellect. "Especially this last thing." 
 
 "Yes," she agreed frankly, "I know." And then 
 to my amazement she added triumphantly, "But 
 I got it." 
 
 S4>S 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 I suppose my look admonished her, for she con- 
 tinued apologetically but stiU as if she really 
 thought hers had been a romantic career, "I know 
 I have not deserved it, but I got it." 
 
 "Oh, ma'am," I cried reproachfully, "reflect. 
 You have not got the great thing." I saw her 
 counting the great things in her mind, her won- 
 drous husband and his obscure success, David, Bar- 
 bara, and the other trifling contents of her jewel- 
 box. 
 
 "I think I have," said she. 
 
 "Come, madam," I cried a little nettled, "you 
 know that there is lacking the one thing you craved 
 for most of aU." 
 
 WiU you believe me that I had to tell her what 
 it was? And when I had told her she exclaimed 
 with extraordinary callousness, "The book? I had 
 forgotten aU about the book !" And then after re- 
 flection she added, "Pooh!" Had she not added 
 Pooh I might have spared her, but as it was I 
 raised the blotting-pad rather haughtily and pre- 
 sented her with the sheet beneath it. 
 
 "What is this?" she asked. 
 344 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 "Ma'am," said I, swelling, "it is a Dedi- 
 cation," and I walked majestically to the win- 
 dow. 
 
 There is no doubt that presently I heard an un- 
 expected sound. Yet if indeed it had been a laugh 
 she clipped it short, for in almost the same moment 
 she was looking large-eyed at me and tapping my 
 sleeve impulsively with her fingers, just as David 
 does when he suddenly likes you. 
 
 "How characteristic of you," she said at the 
 window. 
 
 "Characteristic," I echoed uneasily. "Ha!" 
 
 "And how kind." 
 
 "Did you say kind, ma'am?" 
 
 "But it is I who have the substance and you 
 who have the shadow, as you know very well," said 
 she. 
 
 Yes, I had always known that this was the one 
 flaw in my dedication, but how could I have ex- 
 pected her to have the wit to see it.'' I was very 
 depressed. 
 
 "And there is another mistake," said she. 
 
 "Excuse me, ma'am, but that is the only one." 
 S45 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 "It tras never of mj litUe wlutie bird I wanted to 
 write," she said. 
 
 I looked p«^elj incrednloas, and then indeed 
 she oTeTB-hehned me. 'It was of your little white 
 bird," she said, "it was of a little bov whose name 
 was Timothy." 
 
 She had a very pretty way of saying Timothy, 
 so David and I went into another rocxn to leare 
 her alone wiili the mannscript of this poor little 
 boc&, and when we retmmed she had the greatest 
 surprise of the day for me. She was both laogfaing 
 and crying, whidi was no surprise, for all of ns 
 would laugh and err over a boc& about socli an 
 interesting sobject as oarsdres, but said she, "How 
 WDHig yoa are in thinking this book is about me 
 and mine, it is really all about 'Kmothy." 
 
 At first I deemed this to be uncommon nonsense, 
 but as I ccmsidered I saw- that she was prtAably 
 light again, and I gazed crestfallai at this very 
 dever woman. 
 
 "And so." said she, clapping her hands after the 
 manner of David when he makes a great discuvery, 
 "it proves to be my book after all." 
 S46 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 "With all your pretty thoughts left out," 1 
 answered, properly humbled. 
 
 She spoke in a lower voice as if David must not 
 hear. "I had only one pretty thought for the book," 
 she said, "I was to give it a happy ending." She 
 said this so timidly that I was about to melt to 
 her when she added with extraordinary boldness, 
 "The little white bird was to bear an olive-leaf in 
 its mouth." 
 
 For a long time she talked to me earnestly of a 
 grand scheme on which she had set her heart, and 
 ever and anon she tapped on me as if to get ad- 
 mittance for her ideas. I listened respectfully, smil- 
 ing at this young thing for carrying it so motherly 
 to me, and in the end I had to remind her that I 
 was forty-seven years of age. 
 
 "It is quite young fpr a man," she said brazenly. 
 
 "My father," said I, "was not forty-seven when 
 he died, and I remember thinking him an old 
 man." 
 
 "But you don't think so now, do you?" she per- 
 sisted, "you feel young occasionally, don't you? 
 Sometimes when you are playing with David in 
 347 
 
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD 
 
 the Gardens your youth comes swinging back, does 
 it not?" 
 
 "Mary A ," I cried, grown afraid of the 
 
 woman, "I forbid you to make any more discover- 
 ies to-day." 
 
 But still she hugged her scheme, which I 
 doubt not was what had brought her to my rooms. 
 "They are very dear women," said she coaxingly. 
 
 "I am sure," I said, "they must be dear women 
 if they are friends of yours." 
 
 "They are not exactly young," she faltered, 
 "and perhaps they are not very pretty " 
 
 But she had been reading so recently about thie 
 darling of my youth that she halted abashed at 
 last, feeling, I apprehend, a stop in her mind 
 against proposing this thing to me, who, in those 
 presumptuous days, had thought to be content with 
 nothing less than the loveliest lady in aU the land. 
 
 My thoughts had reverted also, and for the last 
 time my eyes saw the little hut through the pine- 
 wood haze. I met Mary there, and we came back 
 to the present together. 
 
 I have already told you, reader, tiiat this cwi* 
 348 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 versation took place no longer ago than yester- 
 day. 
 
 "Very well, ma'am," I said, trying to put a brave 
 face on it, "I will come to your tea-parties, and we 
 shall see what we shall see." 
 
 It was really all she had asked for, but now that 
 she had got what she wanted of me the foolish soul's 
 eyes became wet, she knew so well that the youthful 
 romances are the best. 
 
 It was now my turn to comfort her. "In twenty 
 years," I said, smiling at her tears, "a man grows 
 htmable, Mary. I have stored within me a great 
 fund of affection, with nobody to give it to, and I 
 swear to you, on the word of a soldier, that if there 
 is one of those ladies who can be got to care for me 
 I shall be very proud." Despite her semblance of 
 delight I knew that she was wondering at me, and 
 I wondered at myself, but it was true. 
 
 THE END 
 
 849