rnado of our own inside, and all his papers
began dancing a sarabande in the room), and we gathered in the poor
creature that was hurt and battered and more than half stunned,
opening alternately its yellow bill and its red eyes in the most
absurd manner.

With a solicitude that it amused me to watch, Sir Adrian had tended
the helpless, goose-like thing and then handed it to Rene's further
care.

Rene, it seemed, had thought of trying to tame the wild bird, and had
constructed a huge sort of cage with laths and barrel-hoops, and
installed it there with various nasty, sea-fishy, weedy things, such
as seagulls consider dainty. But the prisoner, now its vigour had
returned, yearned for nothing but the free air, and ever and anon
almost broke its wings in sudden frenzy to escape.

"I wonder at Rene," said Sir Adrian, contemplating the animal with his
grave look of commiseration; "Rene, who, like myself, has been a
prisoner! He will be disappointed, but we shall make one of God's
creatures happy this day. There is not overmuch happiness in this
world."

And, regardless of the vicious pecks aimed at his hands, he with
firmness folded the great strong wings and legs and carried the gull
outside on the parapet.

There the bird sat a moment, astonished, turning its head round at its
benefactor before taking wing; and then it rose flying away in great
swoops--flap, flap--across the waves till we could see it no longer.
Ugly and awkward as the creature looked in its cage, it was beautiful
in its joyful, steady flight, and I was glad to see it go. I must have
been a bird myself in another existence, for I have often that longing
to fly upon me, and it makes my heart swell with a great impatience
that I cannot.

But I could not help remarking to Sir Adrian that the bird's last look
round had been full of anger rather than gratitude, and his answer, as
he watched it sweep heavily away, was too gloomy to please me:

"Gratitude," said he, "is as rare as unselfishness. If it were not so
this world would be different indeed. As it is, we have no more right
to expect the one than the other. And, when all is said and done, if
doing a so-called kind action gives us pleasure, it is only a special
form of self-indulgence."

There is something wrong about a reasoning of this kind, but I could
not exactly point out where.

We both stood gazing out from our platform upon the darkening waters.
Then across our vision there crept, roun