Explorers of the Dawn

by Mazo De la Roche

"Gin! Where did you taste gin?"

Without reply The Seraph hurried on, while Angel and I scraped our bowls:

"There was once a student fellow and he didn't yike live birds, either. He poisoned one and it died. Then he undertook a walk (this was a favourite expression of Mrs. Handsomebody's) and all the other birds pounced on him and tore him piecemeal."

Mrs. Handsomebody, with a ferocious gleam in her eye, leaned forward to catch the rest. The Seraph's voice was low and insinuating.

"I was finking"—with a chuckle—"that you might poison one of the nicest of the stuffed birds. Then you might get in the glass case wiv the others. We could lock the door on the outside and watch through the glass."

"And I expect you think they would tear me piecemeal? Is that the idea?"

"Oh, I don't know," chuckled The Seraph. "But suppose you twy it."

[Chapter X: The New Day]

I

I think we must have felt that he was coming, for we awoke at dawn that morning. I could barely see the silvery bars between the slats of the shutters. The Seraph was stirring in his sleep, and in a moment he whispered: "I say, John, what's that long black thing behind the door?"