proval. "I always thought
it was more like a buttercup almost than even a real one--and I NEVER
thought it would come to be mine, my very own--and then Mother gave it
to me for my birthday."

"Oh, have you had a birthday?" said Perks; and he seemed quite
surprised, as though a birthday were a thing only granted to a favoured
few.

"Yes," said Bobbie; "when's your birthday, Mr. Perks?" The children were
taking tea with Mr. Perks in the Porters' room among the lamps and
the railway almanacs. They had brought their own cups and some jam
turnovers. Mr. Perks made tea in a beer can, as usual, and everyone felt
very happy and confidential.

"My birthday?" said Perks, tipping some more dark brown tea out of the
can into Peter's cup. "I give up keeping of my birthday afore you was
born."

"But you must have been born SOMETIME, you know," said Phyllis,
thoughtfully, "even if it was twenty years ago--or thirty or sixty or
seventy."

"Not so long as that, Missie," Perks grinned as he answered. "If you
really want to know, it was thirty-two years ago, come the fifteenth of
this month."

"Then why don't you keep it?" asked Phyllis.

"I've got something else to keep besides birthdays," said Perks,
briefly.

"Oh! What?" asked Phyllis, eagerly. "Not secrets?"

"No," said Perks, "the kids and the Missus."

It was this talk that set the children thinking, and, presently,
talking. Perks was, on the whole, the dearest friend they had made. Not
so grand as the Station Master, but more approachable--less powerful
than the old gentleman, but more confidential.

"It seems horrid that nobody keeps his birthday," said Bobbie. "Couldn't
WE do something?"

"Let's go up to the Canal bridge and talk it over," said Peter. "I got a
new gut line from the postman this morning. He gave it me for a bunch of
roses that I gave him for his sweetheart. She's ill."

"Then I do think you might have given her the roses for nothing," said
Bobbie, indignantly.

"Nyang, nyang!" said Peter, disagreeably, and put his hands in his
pockets.

"He did, of course," said Phyllis, in haste; "directly we heard she was
ill we got the roses ready and waited by the gate. It was when you were
making the brekker-toast. And when he'd said 'Thank you' for the roses
so many times--much more than he need have--he pulled out the line and
gave it to Peter. It wasn't exchange. It was the grateful heart."

"Oh, I BEG your pardon, Peter," said Bobbie, "I AM so sorry