The boy immediately answered his unspoken question by demanding, 'Hello, friend! What are you doing there?'

'You see that fly on that cross?' said the man, pointing to a minute speck on one of its arms. 'Wait then, and watch me! I will put out one of its eyes.'

With this, while the boy watched, he drew his bow to the full, and let the arrow fly.

It was a wonderful shot, for one of the eyes of the fly fell on the ground at the foot of the cross.

The boy was so taken with this, that he seemed to grow two whole years in half a minute. To look at him, you would have thought he was no longer a boy. He drew himself up proudly to his full height, and said in the voice of a young man:

'Will you travel with me, my pippy?'

'Pardon?'

Then it was question and answer between them:

'Come, travel with me, my pippy.'
'Oh! Whither away? To old Mandalay?'
'But no; to the far Mississippi,
Where a beautiful Queen holds sway:
And I'll marry that Queen some day.'
'I am yours! And the bounty?'
'Give it a name: I will pay.'

Then the young man took his muffin, and, breaking off a little bit of it, handed it to the man with the bow and arrow.