It was sacrilege,--was it not ingratitude too?
When once more the books and the pictures began to form into a new harmony, there would be no mother's love to help the work go on....
But as he mused in this no doubt sentimental fashion, the door opened and the little red-headed Mike entered.

His was a little Flibbertigibbet of a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour.

Mike was also one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight of one kind of work and no other.

When a mere imp of a boy, the heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human character, particularly in its humorous aspects.

To this end Nature had gifted him with a face that was capable of every form of transformation, and at an early age he hastened to put it in training.