"Have you carried him about all this time?" demanded the colonel.
"He was one of the two friends I had, one of the two I trusted," quietly, with a look which rather disconcerted the Anglo-Indian.
"By the actions of him I should say that he was your bitterest enemy."
"He is; yet I call him friend. There's a peculiar thing about friendship," said the kneeling man. "We make a man our friend; we take him on trust, frankly and loyally; we give him the best we have in us; but we never really know. Rajah is frankly my enemy, and that's why I love him and trust him. I should have preferred a dog; but one takes what one can. Besides …" Warrington paused, thrust the perch between the bars, and got up.
"Jah, jah, jah! Jah—jah—ja-a-a-h!" the bird shrilled.
"Oh, what a funny little bird!" cried Elsa, laughing. "What does he say?"
"I've often wondered. It sounds like the bell-gong you hear in the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, in Rangoon. He picked it up himself."
The colonel returned to his elderly charges and became absorbed in his aged Times. If the girl wanted to pick up the riff-raff to talk to, that was her affair. Americans were impossible, anyhow.
"How long have you been in the Orient?" Elsa asked.
"Ten years," he answered gravely.