"It was this way. I was always brave and adventurous, as you know. My folks lived in a very large tree and were all asleep for the winter except me. I stayed awake so as to run away and see the world. Well, I started out and I travelled and I travelled. It was all woods and I lost my way. By and by I got very tired and climbed up into a thick evergreen tree to rest. I suppose I went to sleep and some men who were out hunting for a Christmas tree must have picked out mine and tied the limbs together tight with cords and cut it down. Then I suppose they must have carried me home and set the tree up in its place and untied the cords, for the first I knew I was tumbling out on to a carpet in a big room, and a lot of children were screaming and running in every direction. I was bigger and some fatter than that cub we saw with the Italian—poor little fellow.
"I'd like to talk to that villain about five minutes alone," continued Horatio, grimly. "I'm sure I could interest him. I'd tell him about the man that used to beat me, and I might give him an imitation of what happened to him," and the big fellow rose and walked back and forth in excitement.
"But go on with your story, Ratio; what happened to you after you fell out of the Christmas tree?"
"Oh! the children tamed me and fed me till I got so big they were afraid of me, and then I ate up some young pigs and a calf and went away."
"You ran away, you mean. What happened then?"
"Well, I went quite a distance and fell in with a circus. I learned to dance there and stayed with them a while. But one day the young ibex came in to see me and they couldn't find anything of him after that except his horns, and seemed suspicious of me, so I went away again."
"Oh, Ratio!"
"Yes; I travelled and changed about a good deal till by and by I fell in with the Italian who promised to teach me to play the violin, and he did teach me some, as you know, but he wasn't kind to me, so I—I wore mourning for him a while, and went away again. Then I met up with you, and you taught me the second part of our tune, and we went into partnership and I reformed, and we've been together ever since. We've been in some pretty close places together, Bosephus, but I've always managed to pull us through safely, and you have behaved very nobly, too, at times, Bosephus—very nobly, indeed."
"Are you sure you have reformed, Horatio?"
Horatio swung the violin to his shoulder and drew the bow across the strings. Then he sang softly:—