“Both,” he said.
“Well,” said I, “you and I are going to be friends, anyway. And I’ve brought along another friend, too. He’s in a book named Kidnapped. He went on a long hike and lived in caves just like you. He made a long trip through mountains with a companion and at last got to Edinburgh.”
He looked at me for a moment in a puzzled way and then asked hesitatingly, “Did he get there in the night?”
“Indeed, I don’t remember,” I said, “but we shall find out.”
Suddenly he began to cry like a baby and it was pitiful to see him. While he was crying I began to read those wonderful adventures of David Balfour and he soon seemed to listen. But with every stir he would start like a frightened animal and he had a way of twisting and pulling the cord around his neck which was heartrending to see, so weak and aimless was it. But he was attentive and evidently interested.
Thus began my acquaintance with that forlorn derelict of the great war, and my simple program for helping him seemed to have begun auspiciously. Each day I visited him and read to him and though he said little, and that to no purpose, he seemed interested and would listen silently hour after hour, starting at the merest sound or movement, and twirling and twisting the cord on which hung his rusty, broken compass.
On the evening of the fourth or fifth day I saw him coming up the mountain path toward the little inn. He paused trembling at the edge of our little arbor and breathed as if he were very weary. I rose slowly, being particular to make no noise or sudden movement, and greeted him as if he had been coming each day. He stood uncertainly, intertwining his fingers, and seemed on the point of retreating. But he had come, and that was a great step in advance.
“I think it is my front name,” he said, as if that were the purpose of his call.
“Oh, yes,” said I. “Tasso. So now I’ll call you Tasso.”
“If it thunders will you come and stay with me?” he asked.