Outside the market we met the turkey-herd again; he had sold no turkeys, but added a pair of white ones to his flock. As we stood admiring him, Patsy joined us, kodak in hand.
“I must snap that Moor,” he said; “please stand before me. If he sees me he will be frightened and think I mean to do him a mischief.” Patsy adjusted his camera; he was on the point of turning the button when a policeman interfered:
“Beg pardon, sir, it’s against the rules to photograph the fortifications.”
“But I wasn’t,” Patsy explained. “I was only taking a shot at that old boy with the turkeys.”
The man pointed to the bastion behind the Moor; it would certainly have come within the kodak’s focus. We tried to comfort Patsy by reminding him that Gibraltar was a fortress, that we were here on sufferance; but he was much chagrined and kept repeating that he was not a spy. At that moment of discomfiture we heard a voice, deep as an organ note, behind us, rumbling out the words:
“I am the book.”
We turned and saw Old Scorp.
“I am the Century.”
“Looks old enough to be,” murmured Patsy.
“I am Harper’s Magazine.”