Farmer Reynardson and his magpie and I had always been great friends. Ever since I was a little fellow I had had a great liking for the farmer’s friendly face, and a still greater reverence for his bird, for he never would let me come within sight of it without making my obeisance in due form. “It’s a lucky magpie,” he always said, “and I don’t know what mightn’t happen if you didn’t treat him with proper respect. Honour where honour is due, my boy!” So I always made my three bows, which seemed to please both the bird and his master. I say “master” now, but in those days I never thought of him as the magpie’s master, nor of the bird as his property. I considered Mag as a member of the family, about whom there was something rather mysterious. It was only when I grew older that I began to think of asking questions about him, and it was not till the very last evening before I left to join the training-ship that I ventured to ask the history of my revered friend. But the farmer would not tell me then. “When you’re ready to fight for the Queen, then I’ll tell you the story,” he said. So I had to wait a pretty long time; and whenever I came home from the _Britannia_ and called at Slade Croft, I felt my curiosity increasing. The story must be worth hearing, or I should not have been kept waiting for it so long. And when I was gazetted midshipman, and ran home to my grandfather’s for a week before joining my ship, I slipped off to the farm the very first evening after dinner. [Illustration: A Lucky Magpie.] Farmer Reynardson rose, shook hands warmly, and slapped me on the back. Then he turned me round and inspected my jacket and Her Majesty’s buttons carefully. “Now for the story,” I cried. “It’s all right, you needn’t look at my boots too, you know,” as his eye travelled down my uniform trousers. “Now for the yarn of the lucky magpie.” “George,” said the farmer gravely, putting his hand on my shoulder, “you shall have it, my lad, this very evening. But I must show you something first.” He walked me through the orchard to a shady corner by the hedge, and showed me a little stone set upright in the ground, on which I read this inscription— Here lies the body of a lucky Magpie and an attached Friend. (J. R.)