half of it would astonish most museums. You're a wonderful boy,
Alister! Ah, we'll all live to see the day when you're a millionaire,
laying the foundation-stone of some of these big things the Aberdeen men
build, and speechifying away to the rising generation of how ye began
life with nothing but a stuffed Demerary parrot in your pocket. Willie,
can't ye lend me some kind of a gun, that I may get him a few of these
highly-painted fowl of the air? If I had but old Barney at my elbow
now--GOD rest his soul!--we'd give a good account of ourselves among the
cockatoos. Many's the lot of sea-birds we've brought home in the hooker
to stuff the family pillows. But I'm no hand at preparing a bird for
stuffing."

"I'll cure them," said I; "the school-master taught me."

"Then we're complete entirely, and Alister 'll die Provost of Aberdeen.
Haven't I got the whole plan in my head? (And it's the first of the
O'Moores that ever developed a genius for business!) Swap crimson macaws
with green breasts in Liverpool for cheap fizzing drinks; trade them in
the thirsty tropics for palm-oil; steer for the north pole, and retail
that to the oleaginous Esquimaux for furs; sell them in Paris in the
autumn for what's left of the summer fashions, and bring these back to
the ladies of Demerary; buy--"

"Dennis! stop that chattering," cried our host; "there's some one at the
door."

We listened. There was a disturbance below stairs, and the young officer
opened the door and shouted for his servant, on which O'Brien came up
three at a time.

"What is it, O'Brien?"

"A Chinese, your honour. I asked him his business, and not a word but
gibberish will he let out of him. But he's brought no papers nor parcels
at all, and sorra peep will I let him have of your honour's room. The
haythen thief!"

But even as O'Brien spoke, a Chinaman, in a China blue dress, passed
between him and the door-post, and stood in the room.

"Who are you?" asked the engineer peremptorily.

"Ah-Fo," was the reply, and the Chinaman bowed low.

"You can understand English, if you can't speak it, eh?"

The Chinaman smiled. His eyes rolled round the room till he caught sight
of Alister, then suddenly producing three letters, fanwise, as if he
were holding a hand at whist, he jerked up the centre one, like a
"forced" card in a trick, and said softly, "For you"--and still looking
round with the others in his hand, he added, "For two; allee same as
you," and as Aliste