I gazed speechless at this wonder-child, pushing the golden locks back from his feverish baby-brow, as if to assure myself by touching him that he was not a phantom. "Ah, well!" he finished, "it doesn't matter. I have had my day, and mustn't grumble. I scarcely thought, when I witnessed the dissolution of the third Gladstone Government, that I should have lived to see him Premier a fourth time. Three doctors told me I was breaking up fast." I began to be frightened of this extraordinary infant, divining some wizardry behind the candid little face--some latter-day mystery of re-incarnation, esoteric Buddhism, what-not. The child perceived my perturbation. "You are thinking I have packed a good deal into my short life," he said, with an amused smile. "And yet some men will make a Gladstone bag hold as much as a portmanteau. Gladstone has done so; and why not I, in my humble degree?" "True," I answered; "but you cannot begin to pack before you are born." "You are entirely mistaken," replied the baby, "if you think I have done anything so precocious as that." "Then you must have lived an odd life," I said, puzzled. "You have hit it!" exclaimed the child, with a suspicion of eagerness, not unmingled with surprise. "I did not mean to tell anyone; but since you are a man of science and I am on the point of death, you may as well know you have guessed the truth." "Have I?" I said, more bewildered than ever. "Yes. In all these years no one has suspected it. It has been carefully kept from outsiders. But now it would, perhaps, be childish folly to be reticent about it. It is the truth--the plain, literal truth--I have lived an odd life." "How did it begin?" I asked, scarce knowing what I said or what I meant. "You shall know all," said Willy. "I must begin before I was born--before I could begin packing, as you put it." His breath came and went painfully. Overwrought with curiosity as I was, I experienced a pang of compunction. "No, no; never mind," I said; "you have not the strength to speak much--you must not waste what you have." "It can only cost me a few minutes of life--I can spare the time," he answered, almost peevishly. Now that he had been strung up to speaking point, he seemed to resent my diminished interest. I put the glass of barley and water to his lips, and forced him to moisten his throat. "I can spare the time," he repeated, while an air of grim satisfaction came over the tiny features. "I have stolen plenty--I have outwitted the arch-thief himself. I have survived my own death." "What!" I gasped. "Have you already died?" "No, no," he replied fretfully; "I am only just going to die. That is how I have survived my death. How dull you are!" "You were going to begin at the beginning," I murmured feebly. "No! What is the use of beginning at the beginning?" this _enfant terrible_ enquired, in the same peevish tones. "I was going to begin before the beginning."