"Well, that is more than many men can do. Women, of course; but not many men without training." The blind man leaned forward, and felt carefully of Pippin's ear. "A good ear!" he nodded approvingly. "An excellent good ear! There's many hold that the outer ear has nothing to do with hearing, but I don't know! I don't know! The Doctor told me of a king who wanted to know everything that was said in his house--palace, like!--and he built it in the shape of an ear. Long ago, Doctor said it was, and he didn't say he believed it, but I've often wondered. But you've had training, too; you've learned how to listen, which is more than some folks learn all their lives long." "You bet I had training!" Not a vision this time, though a dim, brutal figure lurks in the background; not a vision, but a sound! "Listen! listen, you cursed pup, or I'll cut your heart out. My ears are thick to-night. Is that a cop's whistle, or a pal's? If you get it wrong, I'll make you sweat blood--" "Yes, I had training!" said Pippin. "Then--" Brand's face was fairly glowing as he turned it on his young visitor. It was not often that he could speak of his blindness, but there was something about this boy that seemed to draw speech from him like a magnet. "Then--there's the other senses; smell--why, what wonderful pleasure I have in a delicate smell! Whether it's a flower, or my bacon when it's smoked just to the fine point, or--why, take smoke alone, all the various kinds of it! Wood smoke, and good tobacco, and leaves burning in the fall of the year, and brush fires in spring! And there's herbs, southernwood, mint, lemon balm--wonderful pleasure in odors, yes, sir! And when you come to touch, why there's where a blind man has it over a seeing, almost every time. The pleasure of touching a leaf of mullein, say, or soft hair like the little gal's--Flora May's, I would say--or a fruit, or a baby's cheek--wonderful pleasure! I wonder are your fingers as good as your ears? Let me see!" He held out his hand, and Pippin laid his own in it. How proud you were of your hands, Pippin! How you used to boast that your fingers needed no sandpaper to sharpen their exquisite touch! Is that why you hang your head, and the blood creeps up to the roots of your hair? "If he's let to live," a husky voice murmurs, "he'll make a ---- ---- good un; but I ain't certain but I'll wring his neck yet. There's things about him ain't right!" Perfectly consistent, Mr. Bashford, and wholly correct from your point of view! "A fine hand!" says David Brand. "Strong and yet delicate. You can do a great deal with that hand, young man. Why, with that, and your fine ears, you--why--" he laughs his cheery laugh--"I won't go so far as say you'd ought to have been born blind, but you surely would make a first-rate blind man!"