at once by a sort of SILENT
look expressed by his whole face, a look which suggested that he was
not a boy who talked much.

This look was specially noticeable this morning as he stood before the
iron railings. The things he was thinking of were of a kind likely to
bring to the face of a twelve-year-old boy an unboyish expression.

He was thinking of the long, hurried journey he and his father and
their old soldier servant, Lazarus, had made during the last few
days--the journey from Russia. Cramped in a close third-class railway
carriage, they had dashed across the Continent as if something
important or terrible were driving them, and here they were, settled in
London as if they were going to live forever at No. 7 Philibert Place.
He knew, however, that though they might stay a year, it was just as
probable that, in the middle of some night, his father or Lazarus might
waken him from his sleep and say, "Get up--dress yourself quickly. We
must go at once." A few days later, he might be in St. Petersburg,
Berlin, Vienna, or Budapest, huddled away in some poor little house as
shabby and comfortless as No. 7 Philibert Place.

He passed his hand over his forehead as he thought of it and watched
the busses. His strange life and his close association with his father
had made him much older than his years, but he was only a boy, after
all, and the mystery of things sometimes weighed heavily upon him, and
set him to deep wondering.

In not one of the many countries he knew had he ever met a boy whose
life was in the least like his own. Other boys had homes in which they
spent year after year; they went to school regularly, and played with
other boys, and talked openly of the things which happened to them, and
the journeys they made. When he remained in a place long enough to
make a few boy-friends, he knew he must never forget that his whole
existence was a sort of secret whose safety depended upon his own
silence and discretion.

This was because of the promises he had made to his father, and they
had been the first thing he remembered. Not that he had ever regretted
anything connected with his father. He threw his black head up as he
thought of that. None of the other boys had such a father, not one of
them. His father was his idol and his chief. He had scarcely ever
seen him when his clothes had not been poor and shabby, but he had also
never seen him when, despite his worn coat and frayed linen, he had not