a matter of fact, he was very much a man,
and a "live" man, too. He really possessed an extraordinary energy
when he chose to exercise it. But it was generally his habit to push
his interest aside for the easier course of indifference. However, his
capacity was none the less there.

His other possessions, too, were excellent in their way, although he
had encouraged the germ of rust in a deplorable degree. His
good-nature would not be denied, and was obvious to all. But an
extremely alert mind, an infinite resource of keen, well-trained
thought, a profound love of the beautiful, a more commonplace physical
courage supported by the rarer moral courage, he contrived to keep
well hidden from the vulgar gaze.

These were some of the features so long concealed under the folds of
his cloak of indolence that even he had almost forgotten their
existence. Thus it was, in all seriousness, he cried out bitterly in
protest when an attempt was made to lift the covering and lay bare the
man beneath it. And his lamentations were perfectly genuine.

After leaving the store with a sack of provisions over his shoulder he
grumbled his way across the dumps to Scipio's house. He cursed the
weight he was forced to carry, and anathematized the man who had
driven him to so bestir himself. He lamented over this waste of his
precious energies, he consigned Scipio and his children to eternity,
and metaphorically hurled Jessie headlong to the depths of the
uttermost abyss of the nether-world. But he went on. In spite of his
foulest language and vilest epithets, it was his full intention to do
his best for the children.

What he found on entering Scipio's hut set his small eyes twinkling
again. His unclean face creased up into a grin, and, softly tiptoeing
to a far corner of the room, he deposited his sack with the greatest
care. Then he stood up, and his eyes fixed themselves on a curious
heap under the table. It was a tumbled pile of pale blue, dirty white,
with a four-legged dash of yellow. And out of the heap he made the
forms of two small sleeping children, each hugging in their arms an
extremity of a yellow cur pup, also sound asleep, in the shaft of
sunlight which flooded in through the open doorway.

Sunny rubbed his eyes and thought hard, nor did he find the process
irksome. From the miserable camp pup he glanced at the grubby face of
Jamie. Then his eyes passed on to Vada's pretty but equally dirty
features. And swift action at once