ome in and bring it with him?"

"Surely, my tear. Let him come in. It iss always goot for sore eyes to
see himself--whatever."

Elspie went out. A few minutes later there was heard in the passage a
strange rumbling sound.

"What in all the world iss that?" said the old man to Little Bill, who
happened to be his companion at the time.

"It sounds like wheels, I think," said Billie.

The door opened as he spoke, and Dan Davidson entered, pushing before
him an invalid chair of a kind that is familiar enough in the civilised
world, but which was utterly unknown at that time in those regions.

"Goot-mornin', Tan; what hev you got there? Iss it a surprise you will
be givin' me?"

"It is a chair, sir, which will, I hope, add a good deal to your
comfort," said Dan. "I made it myself, from the memory-model of one
which I once saw in the old country. See, I will show you how it acts.
Push me along, Jessie."

Dan sat down in the chair as he spoke, and his sister Jessie, who
entered at the moment, pushed him all about the room with the greatest
ease.

"Well, well!" said the amused invalid. "Ye are a clever man, Taniel.
It iss a goot contrivance, an' seems to me fery well made. Could Little
Bill push it, think ye? Go an' try, boy."

Little Bill found that he could push Dan in the chair as easily as
Jessie had done it.

"But that is not all," said Dan. "See--now I will work the chair
myself."

So saying he laid his hands on the two large wheels at either side--
which, with a little wheel behind, supported the machine--and moved it
about the room, turned it round, and, in short, acted in a very
independent manner as to self-locomotion.

"Well, now, that _iss_ goot," exclaimed the pleased invalid. "Let me
try it, Tan."

In his eagerness the poor man, forgetting for a moment his helpless
condition, made an effort to rise, and would certainly have fallen off
the chair on which he was seated if Elspie had not sprung to his
assistance.

"Come, there's life in you yet!" said Dan as he assisted the old man
into the wheel-chair. "Put your hands--so. And when you want to turn
sharp round you've only to pull with one hand and push with--"

"Get along with you," interrupted the old man, facetiously giving the
chair a swing that caused all who stood around him to leap out of his
way: "will you hev the presumption to teach a man that knew how to scull
a boat before you wass born? But, Taniel," he added, in a mor