An' then I calc'lated that Elbert should be rising fourteen now, an' I saw then thet 'e 'adn't grown an inch since I first see 'im, nor 'e hadn't changed 'is ways, but still 'e run about laughin', playin' 'is little kiddy-game, with 'is face to the sun.

An' then I remembered 'ow often 'e'd tol' me things thet seemed too 'istorical for sich as 'im to come by honest, tales about blokes in 'istory--nanecdotes 'e'd use to pass acrost about Admiral Nelson, or Queen Bess--she use to make 'im chuckle, she did--an' a chap called Shilly or Shally, 'oo was drownded.

An' I got struck all of an 'eap, to think 'e was some sort of an everlasting boy, an' p'raps 'e was a devil, I thought, an' p'raps I'd sold me soul without knowin' it.

I never took much stock of me soul, but I always 'ad that debt o' mine in me mind, an' I wanted to pay it clean.

For them London mists agin the sky in the Spring, an' for the moonlight, an' for the sky just before a thunderstorm--all them things seemed to 'ave come out of the same box, like, an' I didn't like feelin' as 'ow they was all jest charity....