The argument was stopped at this point by the entrance of a small telegraph message-boy. Bones was startled by his sudden entrance. "Well, good-night, sir, we'll talk that matter over some other time," he said quickly, pulling his wideawake well over his face as he went out, and giving the message-boy a prolonged stare. The boy paid no regard to him, but, turning to Aspel, introduced himself as Peter Pax. "What! the comrade-in-arms of my friend Phil Maylands?" asked Aspel. "The same, at your service," replied the small messenger; "an' if you are the friend he talks to me so much about, as goes by the name of George Aspel, an' is descended in a direct line from the old sea-kings, I'm proud to make your acquaintance." Aspel laughed at the consummate self-possession of the boy, and shaking hands with him heartily as a comrade of their common friend Phil, bade him take a seat, which he immediately did on the counter. "You're surrounded by pleasant company here," observed Pax, gazing intently at the pelican of the wilderness. "Well, yes; but it's rather silent company," said Aspel. "Did that fellow, now," continued Pax, pointing to the owl, "die of surprise?" "Perhaps he did, but I wasn't present at his death," returned the other. "Well, now, I do like this sort o' thing." Little Pax said this with such genuine feeling, and looked round him with such obvious interest, that Aspel, with some surprise, asked him why he liked it. "Why? because from my earliest years I always was fond of animals. No matter what sort they wos, I liked 'em all--birds an' beasts an' fishes, flyers and creepers, an' squeakers and flutterers," said the boy, clasping both hands over one knee, and rocking himself to and fro on the counter, while he gazed into the owl's face with the air of one whose mind is rambling far away into the remote past. "Once on a time," he continued, sadly, "I dwelt in the country. I was born in the country. I'm a sort o' country gentleman by nature, so to speak, and would have bin revellin' in the country to this day if a perwerse fate hadn't driven me into the town--a very perwerse fate indeed." "Indeed?" said Aspel, unable to restrain a laugh at his visitor's old-fashioned ways, "what sort of fate was it?" "A perwerse one, didn't I tell you?" "Yes, but wherein consisted its perversity? How did it act, you know?" "Ah, its perwersity consisted in drivin' me into town in a market-cart," said Pax. "You must know that my perwerse fate was a uncle. He was a big brute. I don't mean to speak of 'im disrespectfully. I merely give 'im his proper name. He was a market-gardener and kept cows--also a pump. He had a wife and child--a little girl. Ah! a sweet child it was." "Indeed," said Aspel, as the boy relapsed into a silent contemplative gaze at the pelican.