"H'm," said the lawyer. "I say, Pudge, do you ever look in the glass?" Pudge nodded. "When I'm playing Jack the Giant Killer, first I'm Jack and then I look in the glass; and then I'm the two-headed giant and then I look in the glass and try to see two heads on me." Watts was interested. "A great game," he agreed. "Now suppose you shin up my leg as far as my vest pocket and see what's in it." Pudge immediately essayed the shin, his little fat form clinging and groping. The vest pocket and its candy trove having been achieved, his friend put him on a shoulder and galloped around the garden with him. "I'm sailing," crowed Pudge with delight, "I'm flying through the air, I'm a pigeon." The little hands ran into Watts' neck. "I like fathers," said Pudge with satisfaction. "What!" gasped the lawyer. They paused by the water barrel and Watts, looking in the smooth surface, saw himself with the little face looking over his head. "I like fathers," repeated Pudge; "they come and play with you like this. Greddy Martin's father, he comes and plays with him like this." "But, old scout, I'm not your father." Watts looked at himself in the rain barrel, and a thought came to him. Guiltily he peered to see if it was in his face. "Oh, my father's dead," said little Pudge, practically. "But you are something like Greddy's father, and so I don't care." The rain barrel image wavered a little; the lawyer chuckled slightly. "Huh!" he growled, "I'm not a father, I am a camel. I'm carrying you on my back across the Algerian desert. Do you know what that is, Pudge?" "Yes," said Pudge, "we have it for dinner." "Well," smiled the "Camel," "I've carried you all across the Algerian desert and this rain barrel is an oasis where you stop and pick a date off this little peach tree." The two gravely picked imaginary dates and drank out of the spring. "But you must be careful when I drink out of the spring not to fall off my back into the rain barrel." The camel pretended to drink from the oasis rain barrel with dramatic effects of allowing the small rider to fall into it, and only by a miracle as it seemed did Pudge escape that awful fate. The little boy, his eyes shining, looked into his friend's face. "Oh! we're having fun," he cried, "fun like other boys with their fathers. I wish you'd come every day! I like you." "Supposing," said Watts, "I was to pitch my tent just outside your gate here, would Mother let me stay?" Pudge deliberated. "She might, perhaps. I could ask her," and hopefully, "Maybe she wouldn't say no; maybe she would say, 'We'll see.'" Watts smiled to himself. "How about food; my black horse and Friar Tuck, my big dog, would you bring us things to eat every morning?" Now Pudge was slightly taken back. "You could have half my breakfast," he promised as man to man, "and one graham cracker," but the thing grew to present difficulties to Pudge; "and one baked apple on Sundays," he faltered slowly.