"No," said Mr. Corney, looking sad and shaking his head; "I don't believe I have a friend left in the world."
"There's that one you're always singing about," said the boy. "Who's he?"
And then, as the old sailor looked at him with a puzzled expression, the boy tried to sing, in his shrill little voice:—
"I've got a Friend, oh, such a Friend!"
The old man's face suddenly lit up.
"Ah, that Friend!" he said. "I did not know what you meant. Ah, yes, I've that Friend, and he that has Him can do without any other."
And then in his quavering voice he began to sing:—
"'I've found a Friend, oh, such a Friend!
He bled, He died, to save me;
And not alone the gift of life,
But His own self He gave me.'
"You know who that Friend is, surely, boy?"
Bert's face had suddenly taken a serious, thoughtful expression. "I don't know," he said.