rsed up tight. No! no! that was not a pleasant
picture! Well, there was Lena! she was pleasant to look at, surely! Her
hair was like silver, and her eyes blue and soft, though they could be
sharp, too. But, somehow, when her face was brought here beside the
Skipper's, it looked foolish and empty, and her pretty smile had nothing
to say except to bid one look and see how pretty she was, and how
becoming blue was to her; and--and, altogether, she would not do at all.

Mr. Bill Hen, then, who was always kind to him, and quite often, when.
Mrs. Pike was not near, would give him a checkerberry lozenge. Mr. Bill
Hen's face was good-natured, to be sure, but oh, how coarse and red and
stupid it was beside the fine dark sleeping mask! Why did people look so
different, and more when they were asleep than any other time? Did one's
soul come out and kind of play about, and light up the person's face;
and if so, was it not evident that the Skipper _was_ a good man? and
that perhaps things were really different in his country, and they had
other kinds of Ten Commandments, and--no, but right was right, and it
didn't make any difference about countries in that sort of thing. You
knew that yourself, because you felt it in your stomach when you did bad
things; perhaps when one grew older, one's stomach did not feel so
quickly. And, anyhow, if that was true about the soul, how do you
suppose a person's own soul would make his face look if he was running
away from the things he ought to do, and going to play with monkeys and
see the wonders of the world? The boy wondered what he was looking like
at the present moment, and summoned up the image of a frightful picture
of a devil in another of those old books into which he was forever
peeping at odd times. Did they miss him now, the old books in the
garret, because he had not come up to wish them good-night and take a
look at some of the best pictures before he went to bed? Was he likely
to turn into a devil when he died, do you suppose?

How still it was, and how queer his eyes felt! But he could not lie
down, for then he would be alone again, and the things would come and
sit on him; it was good to sit up and look at the Skipper, and
wonder--and wonder--

A gleam, faint and red, shot from a shell in the farther corner,--a
splendid creature, scarlet and pale green, with horns that gave it a
singularly knowing look. He almost thought it nodded to him; and hark!
was that a tiny voice speakin