Then, because at a turn of the road he saw a bird that reminded him of a beast that reminded him of a reptile, he left me unceremoniously and went back to the laboratory. Feeling a bit raw over his desertion, I gave up my walk and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the library. At the edge of the reading-room I found Madge Hubert brandishing a ferocious-looking paper-knife over the perfectly helpless new magazines. With a little cry of delight she summoned me to her by the wave of a _Science Monthly_. Looking over her shoulder I beheld with equal delight that the canny old Science paper had stuck in Sagner's great, ugly face for a frontispiece. At arm's length, with opening and narrowing eyes, I studied the perfect, clever likeness: the convict-cropped hair; the surly, aggressive, relentlessly busy features; the absurd, overwrought, deep-sea sort of eyes. "Great Heavens, Miss Hubert," I said, "did you ever see such a funny-looking man?" The girl winced. "Funny?" she gasped. "Funny? Why, I think Bertus Sagner is the most absolutely fascinating-looking man that I ever saw in my life." She stared at me in astonishment. To hide my emotions I fled to the history room. Somewhat to my surprise Mrs. Lennart and her little lad were there, delving deep into some thrilling grammar-school problem concerning Henry the Eighth. I nodded to them, thought they saw me, and slipped into a chair not far behind them. There was no one else in the room. Maybe my thirst for historical information was not very keen. Certainly every book that I touched rustled like a dead, stale autumn leaf. Maybe the yellow bird in the acacia tree just outside the window teased me a little bit. Anyway, my eyes began only too soon to stray from the text-books before me to the little fluttering wisp of Mrs. Lennart's hair that tickled now and then across the lad's hovering face. I thought I had never seen a sweeter picture than those two cuddling, browsing faces. Surely I had never seen one more entrancingly serene. [Illustration: "Oh, I wish I had a sister," fretted the boy] Then suddenly I saw the lad push back his books with a whimper of discontent. "What is it?" asked his mother. I could hear her words plainly. "Oh, I wish I had a sister," fretted the boy. "Why?" said the mother in perfectly happy surprise. The lad began to drum on the table. "Why do I want a sister?" he repeated a trifle temperishly. "Why, so I could have some one to play with and walk with and talk with and study with. Some one jolly and merry and frisky." "Why--what about _me_?" she quizzed. Even at that moment I felt reasonably certain that she was still smiling. The little lad looked bluntly up into her face. "Why you are--_so old_!" he said quite distinctly.