"He is; yet I call him friend. There's a peculiar thing about friendship," said the kneeling man. "We make a man our friend; we take him on trust, frankly and loyally; we give him the best we have in us; but we never really know. Rajah is frankly my enemy, and that's why I love him and trust him. I should have preferred a dog; but one takes what one can. Besides . . ." Warrington paused, thrust the perch between the bars, and got up. "Jah, jah, jah! Jah--jah--ja-a-a-h!" the bird shrilled. "Oh, what a funny little bird!" cried Elsa, laughing. "What does he say?" "I've often wondered. It sounds like the bell-gong you hear in the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, in Rangoon. He picked it up himself." The colonel returned to his elderly charges and became absorbed in his aged _Times_. If the girl wanted to pick up the riff-raff to talk to, that was her affair. Americans were impossible, anyhow. "How long have you been in the Orient?" Elsa asked. "Ten years," he answered gravely. "That is a long time." "Sometimes it was like eternity." "I have heard from the purser of your good luck." "Oh!" He stooped again and locked the door of Rajah's cage. "I dare say a good many people will hear of it." "It was splendid. I love to read stories like that, but I'd far rather hear them told first-hand." Elsa was not romantic in the sense that she saw heroes where there were only ordinary men; but she thrilled at the telling of some actual adventure, something big with life. Her heart and good will went out to the man who won against odds. Strangely enough, soldier's daughter though she was, the pomp and glamour and cruelty of war were detestable to her. It was the obscure and unknown hero who appealed to her: such a one as this man might be. "Oh, there was nothing splendid about the thing. I simply hung on." Then a thought struck him. "You are traveling alone?" "With a companion." A peculiar question, she thought. "It is not wise," he commented. "My father was a soldier," she replied. "It isn't a question of bravery," he replied, a bit of color charging under his skin. Elsa was amused. "And, pray, what question is it?" He was like a boy. "I'm afraid of making myself obscure. This world is not like your world. Women over here. . . Oh, I've lost the art of saying things clearly." He pulled at his beard embarrassedly. "I rather believe I understand you. The veneer cracks easily in hot climates; man's veneer." "And falls off altogether." "Are you warning me against yourself?" "Why not? Twenty thousand pounds do not change a man; they merely change the public's opinion of him. For all you know, I may be the greatest rascal unhanged." "But you are not." He recognized that it was not a query; and a pleasurable thrill ran over him. Had there been the least touch of condescension in her manner, he would have gone deep into his shell.