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Tossing his cheroot-end into the stove, he allows an interregnum for reverie. He leans his head upon his hand; his thick brown hair half hides the keen sparkle of his grey eyes; the lines of his mouth soften. He is thinking probably of welcomes from old friends, of pilgrimages to old shrines. Suddenly he throws down his hand; the proud expression closes again about his lips, his face hardens, hardens——

“Brown man, what makes you look so ugly and black?” says Sammy, loquitur. “Ma, I know he wants to kill me for wettin’ his clothes,” and Sammy wept boo! hoo!

“Don’t cry, my boy,” said Mr. Waddy, and putting his hand into a pocket he thought his own, he drew out not the expected purse containing the presentable shilling, but a strip of pigtail tobacco. “Am I brown? I am the Ancient Mariner. I have been where the sun bakes men as brown as that loaf of gingerbread. Here are two shillings out of my vest pocket. Keep one yourself and buy that loaf from your mother with the other. My mother used to bake gingerbread and my father sold it, years ago, when I was white, not ginger-coloured.”