"Were the bones black? However did you escape? Why didn't the tiger eat you?"
He drew the children closely round him on the sofa. "I'll tell you," he said, "for this is an inaugural occasion, and I've never told the story before to any one in the world. The experience was incredible, and no one would believe it. But the proof that it really happened is that the tiger has left its mark upon me till I die—"
"But you haven't died—yet, I mean," Maria observed.
"He means teeth, silly," Tim squelched her.
"Died in another sense than the one you mean," the great soldier and former administrator of a province continued, "dyed yellow—"
"Oh-h-h! Is that why—?"
"That is why," he replied pathetically. "For living with that tiger family so long, I almost turned into one myself. The tiger nature got into me. I snarl and growl, I use my teeth ferociously when hungry, I walk stealthily on tiptoe, I let my whiskers grow, and my colour has the tint of Indian tigers' skins."
"Have you got a tail, too?"
He glared into the blue eyes of Maria, sternly. "It's growing," he whispered horribly, "it's growing."
There was a pause in which credulity shook hands with faith. Belief was in the air. If doubt did whisper, "Let me see, please," it was too low to be quite audible. Come-Back Stumper was surrounded by an atmosphere of black-edged glory suddenly; he wore a halo; his feet were dipped in mystery.