"Yes," broke in The Seraph eagerly, "but she's comin' back some day to make a weally home for us!"
"Shut up!" said Angel gruffly, poking him with his elbow.
"The Seraph's very little," I explained apologetically, "he doesn't understand."
The old gentleman put his hand in the pocket of his dressing-gown.
"Bantling," he said with his droll smile, "do you like peppermint bull's-eyes?"
"Yes," said The Seraph, "I yike them—one for each of us."
Whereupon this extraordinary man began throwing us peppermints as fast as we could catch them. It was surprising how we began to feel at home with him, as though we had known him for years.
He had travelled all over the world it seemed, and he brought many curious things to the window to show us. One of these was a starling whose wicker cage he placed on the sill where the sunlight fell.
He had got it, he said, from one of the crew of a trading vessel off the coast of Java. The sailor had brought it all the way from Devon for company, and, he added—"the brute had put out both its eyes so that it would learn to talk more readily, so now, you see, the poor little fellow is quite blind."
"Blind—blind—blind!" echoed the starling briskly, "blind—blind—blind!"