And slowly the Tramp turned round his shaggy head and gazed into their faces, each in turn. He answered in his leisurely, laborious way as though each word were a bank-note that he dealt out carefully, fixing attention upon its enormous value. There was certainly a tremor in his rumbling voice. But there was no hurry. "I've--seen him," he said with feeling, "seen him--once or twice. My life's thick with memories--" "Seen him!" sprang from three mouths simultaneously. "Once or twice, I said." He paused and sighed. Wind stirred the rose trees just behind him. He went on murmuring in a lower tone; and as he spoke a sense of exquisite new beauty stole across the old-world garden. "It was--in the morning--very early," he said below his breath. "At dawn!" Uncle Felix whispered. "When the birds begin," from Judy very softly. "To sing," Tim added, a single shiver of joy running through all three of them at once. The enchantment of their own dim memories of the dawn--of a robin, of swallows, and of an up-and-under bird flashed magically back. The Tramp nodded his great head slowly; he bowed it to the sunlight, as it were. There was a great light flaming in his eyes. He seemed to give out heat. "Just seen him--and no more," he went on marvellously, as though speaking of a wonderful secret of his own. "Seen him a-stealing past me--in the dawn. Just looked at me--and went--went back again behind the rushing minutes!" "Was it long ago? How long?" asked Judy with eager impatience impossible to suppress. They did not notice the reference to Time, apparently. The wanderer scratched his tangled crop of hair and seemed to calculate a moment. He gazed down at the small white feather in his hand. But the feather held quite still. No breath of wind was stirring. "When I was young," he said, with an expression half quizzical, half yearning. "When I first took to the road--as a boy--and began to look." "As long ago as that!" Tim murmured breathlessly. It was like a stretch of history. The Tramp put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I was about your age," he said, "when I got tired of the ordinary life, and started wandering. And I've been wandering and looking ever since. Wandering--and wondering--and looking--ever since," he repeated in the same slow way, while the feather between his great fingers began to wave a little in time with the dragging speech. The wonder of it enveloped them all three like a perfume rising from the entire earth. "We've been looking for ages too," cried Judy. "And we've seen him," exclaimed her brother quickly. "Somebody," added Uncle Felix, more to himself than to the others. The Tramp combed his splendid beard, as if he hoped to find more feathers in it. "This morning, wasn't it?" he asked gently, "very early?" They reflected a moment, but the reflection did not help them much. "Ages and ages ago," they answered. "So long that we've forgotten rather--"