“That a Cow!” he said.
“Yes,” said Miss Letty, “and you thought it a very nice Cow when you were a little child. But you have grown so big now—though you are only nine years old. Oh, don’t you remember!—you used to call it ‘Dunny’?”
Boy’s face brightened with a sudden look of recognition.
“Oh, yes! I remember now!” he said, and he gave a fillip with his finger to the head of the despised “Dunny” to set it wagging faster. “That was when I was quite a baby!”
“Yes,” said Miss Leslie, sorrowfully, “when you were quite a baby!”
She held the Cow in her hand tenderly—she would not put it back among the broken toys. But she said no more about it just then. The only thing they found among the mass of rubbish which had been thrust into Boy’s portmanteau so hastily by his mother’s maid-of-all-work was a German War-game, which Boy proposed to play with Miss Letty.
She acceded, and together they went down to her own boudoir, where she placed “Dunny” on a little bracket above her writing-desk, and then applied herself to master the game of killing as per German military tactics. Boy proved himself an extraordinary adept at this mechanical warfare, and won all along as triumphantly as if he had been the Kaiser himself. Indeed, he showed an extraordinary amount of cunning, which, though clever, was not altogether as lovable and childlike as Miss Letty in her simplicity of soul could have wished. There was a vague discomfort in her mind as she allowed herself to be ignominiously beaten. For though the game was only a game, it had its fixed rules like every other, and Miss Letty was sorely worried by the fancy—it was only a fancy—that Boy had been trying to “cheat” in a peculiarly adroit fashion. She would not allow herself to dwell upon the point, however, and when she put away the game, and took him to tea in the drawing-room, where two of the ladies staying in the house were sitting with their needlework, and listening to the howling wind and gusty rain, she gave him a little chair by the side of the bright fire, which was necessary on such a chilly day in Scotland, and let him talk as he liked, and generally express his sentiments. For some time he was very silent, contenting himself with tea-cake and scones, and only occasionally remarking on the absence of Alister McDonald, and the suffering he was perhaps undergoing with his tooth; but after a bit he began to ask questions, and unburden his mind on sundry matters, encouraged thereto by one of the ladies present, who was interested by his winsome face, clear eyes, and light, trim little figure.
“What are you going to be when you are a man?” she asked.
Boy considered.
“A man is a long way off,” he answered gravely. “And, you see, you can never tell what may happen! Dads is a man. But he isn’t anything.”