Well, I suppose it must all end one day. As it is, I find myself looking back longingly to the time when to the public I was just an eagle and a king of birds. I can even remember with toleration the two simple souls who once perched upon a garden-seat before my apartments. Said one, "There y' are, M'ria. _There's_ one of them armerdillers young Bert was tellin' us about." And the other replied: "Why, don't you know no more nat'ral 'ist'ry than that, Elfrid? _That_ ain't a armadiller; that's a 'ummin'-bird!" * * * * * TOMMY BROWN, AUCTIONEER. Tommy Brown knows all about India. You see his father served out there, and that is how Tommy knows so much. He says that everybody in India has to have a bath once a year in the Ganges, and that there is a delta at the mouth of the Ganges as big as Ireland. Tommy says it is very hot in the shade in India, but you needn't walk in the shade unless you like. He showed me how an idol looked--it is like when you come to the castor oil under the ginger wine. But it is about the Indian troops that I want to tell you. Tommy was very pleased when they came, because he knows all about them. He likes the Gherkins best, he says, because they are so hardy. Tommy says the Gherkins can hold their breath for five minutes without going red in the face, and that's why they can fight so well. He says they never want anything to eat, because they have a kind of a twig that they chew, and then all they have to do is to keep tightening their belts. Tommy gave me some of the twig they chew; it tasted like cabbage. I didn't want anything more to eat all that day. Tommy had some himself; he says now he doesn't think it was the right kind of twig. Tommy told me that the Gherkins' mothers teach them to prowl when they are very young, and that they are always prowling. Tommy showed me how to prowl. You have to lie flat on your stomach, and wriggle about as if you were swimming. He says it makes the Gherkins very hardy. They always do it, Tommy says, even when they have a half-holiday. To do it properly you have to breathe through the back of your throat and move your ears. When the KING went to India, Tommy says he was surprised at the Gherkins. They used to prowl before him, and he was very glad. He said they were very hardy. Tommy says they are very brave because they don't know what fear is; his father told him that. He says no one has ever seen a Gherkin blub; if they have to, they go and do it somewhere else. There is only one way you can kill them. Tommy knows the way, but he daren't tell anyone. Tommy says that when they want to kill a man they prowl after him for five miles, and then come back as silently as they went. He says it is no good shooting at them, because they are not there.