ered Johnnie. "It's pretty long,
ain't it? And if Grandpa and me called her that, Big Tom'd think we was
wastin' time, or tryin' t' be stylish, and he hates ev'rything that's
stylish--I don't know why. So round the flat, for ev'ry day, we call her
Cis--C-i-s."

"Well, Miss Narcissa is right about me," said Mr. Perkins. "I'm _not_ as
grand as the Prince of Wales--not by a good deal! But now suppose you
tell me all about yourself, and--and the others who live here."

Johnnie did so. And since he spoke low, and evenly, Grandpa did not
wake, to interrupt. At the end of an hour, Mr. Perkins knew all that
Johnnie was able to tell--about himself, his parents, his Uncle and
Aunt, Mike Callaghan, the policeman, and the Fifty-fifth Street
millionaire; about Cis and her mother, Barber and his father, Mrs.
Kukor, One-Eye and the other cowboys, Buckle, Boof, David, Goliath
(mingling the real, the historical, the visionary and the purely
fictional), young Edward of England, that Prince's numerous silk-hatted
friends, the four millionaires, the janitress, Mrs. Reisenberger and her
baby, the flea-bitten mare, the postman, Edwarda (he showed the new
doll), then, in quick succession, his favorite friends out of his five
books.

Mr. Perkins listened, sitting on the small of his back, with his elbows
on the arms of the morris chair, and his fingers touching. And when
Johnnie came to the end of his story (with King Arthur, and those three
Queens who kneeled around the king and sorely wept and wailed), all the
visitor said was, "Good boy! And now tell me more about your reading."

Johnnie's eyes danced. He stood up, fairly quivering with happy
excitement. Enthusiastically he explained that directly under Mr.
Perkins was his oldest book, whereat Mr. Perkins got up, lifted the old
chair cushion, and discovered the telephone directory. However,
astonishing as it may seem, he had one just like it, so Johnnie did not
lift the big book out to show its chief points of interest. Instead, he
brought forth from Cis's closet his other treasures in binding, laying
them very choicely on the table, and handing them over one by one--the
best-looking of the lot first.

The books were put away again very soon, Johnnie explaining why. "But y'
can keep the newspaper out," he declared. "Big Tom's seen it, and didn't
try even t' tear it up."

"That was nice of him!" asserted Mr. Perkins, as he noted the date on
the paper. "But what about school?"

"Oh,