LITMIR.BIZ

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to resist them. Before they had done him or the jacket any harm, however, suddenly they all scampered away; and Diamond, looking in the opposite direction, saw the tall policeman coming towards him.

      "You had better have let me come with you, little man," he said, looking down in Diamond's face, which was flushed with his resistance.

      "You came just in the right time, thank you," returned Diamond. "They've done me no harm."

      "They would have if I hadn't been at hand, though."

      "Yes; but you were at hand, you know, so they couldn't."

      Perhaps the answer was deeper in purport than either Diamond or the policeman knew. They walked away together, Diamond telling his new friend how ill poor Nanny was, and that he was going to let the tall gentleman know. The policeman put him in the nearest way for Bloomsbury, and stepping out in good earnest, Diamond reached Mr. Raymond's door in less than an hour. When he asked if he was at home, the servant, in return, asked what he wanted.

      "I want to tell him something."

      "But I can't go and trouble him with such a message as that."

      "He told me to come to him—that is, when I could read—and I can."

      "How am I to know that?"

      Diamond stared with astonishment for one moment, then answered:

      "Why, I've just told you. That's how you know it."

      But this man was made of coarser grain than the policeman, and, instead of seeing that Diamond could not tell a lie, he put his answer down as impudence, and saying, "Do you think I'm going to take your word for it?" shut the door in his face.

      Diamond turned and sat down on the doorstep, thinking with himself that the tall gentleman must either come in or come out, and he was therefore in the best possible position for finding him. He had not waited long before the door opened again; but when he looked round, it was only the servant once more.

      "Get, away" he said. "What are you doing on the doorstep?"

      "Waiting for Mr. Raymond," answered Diamond, getting up.

      "He's not at home."

      "Then I'll wait till he comes," returned Diamond, sitting down again with a smile.

      What the man would have done next I do not know, but a step sounded from the hall, and when Diamond looked round yet again, there was the tall gentleman.

      "Who's this, John?" he asked.

      "I don't know, sir. An imperent little boy as will sit on the doorstep."

      "Please sir" said Diamond, "he told me you weren't at home, and I sat down to wait for you."

      "Eh, what!" said Mr. Raymond. "John! John! This won't do. Is it a habit of yours to turn away my visitors? There'll be some one else to turn away, I'm afraid, if I find any more of this kind of thing. Come in, my little man. I suppose you've come to claim your sixpence?"

      "No, sir, not that."

      "What! can't you read yet?"

      "Yes, I can now, a little. But I'll come for that next time. I came to tell you about Sal's Nanny."

      "Who's Sal's Nanny?"

      "The girl at the crossing you talked to the same day."

      "Oh, yes; I remember. What's the matter? Has she got run over?"

      Then Diamond told him all.

      Now Mr. Raymond was one of the kindest men in London. He sent at once to have the horse put to the brougham, took Diamond with him, and drove to the Children's Hospital. There he was well known to everybody, for he was not only a large subscriber, but he used to go and tell the children stories of an afternoon. One of the doctors promised to go and find Nanny, and do what could be done—have her brought to the hospital, if possible.

      That same night they sent a litter for her, and as she could be of no use to old Sal until she was better, she did not object to having her removed. So she was soon lying in the fever ward—for the first time in her life in a nice clean bed. But she knew nothing of the whole affair. She was too ill to know anything.

      CHAPTER XXII.

       MR. RAYMOND'S RIDDLE

       Table of Contents

      MR. RAYMOND took Diamond home with him, stopping at the Mews to tell his mother that he would send him back soon. Diamond ran in with the message himself, and when he reappeared he had in his hand the torn and crumpled book which North Wind had given him.

      "Ah! I see," said Mr. Raymond: "you are going to claim your sixpence now."

      "I wasn't thinking of that so much as of another thing," said Diamond. "There's a rhyme in this book I can't quite understand. I want you to tell me what it means, if you please."

      "I will if I can," answered Mr. Raymond. "You shall read it to me when we get home, and then I shall see."

      Still with a good many blunders, Diamond did read it after a fashion. Mr. Raymond took the little book and read it over again.

      Now Mr. Raymond was a poet himself, and so, although he had never been at the back of the north wind, he was able to understand the poem pretty well. But before saying anything about it, he read it over aloud, and Diamond thought he understood it much better already.

      "I'll tell you what I think it means," he then said. "It means that people may have their way for a while, if they like, but it will get them into such troubles they'll wish they hadn't had it."

      "I know, I know!" said Diamond. "Like the poor cabman next door. He drinks too much."

      "Just so," returned Mr. Raymond. "But when people want to do right, things about them will try to help them. Only they must kill the snake, you know."

      "I was sure the snake had something to do with it," cried Diamond triumphantly.

      A good deal more talk followed, and Mr. Raymond gave Diamond his sixpence.

      "What will you do with it?" he asked.

      "Take it home to my mother," he answered. "She has a teapot—such a black one!—with a broken spout, and she keeps all her money in it. It ain't much; but she saves it up to buy shoes for me. And there's baby coming on famously, and he'll want shoes soon. And every sixpence is something—ain't it, sir?"

      "To be sure, my man. I hope you'll always make as good a use of your money."

      "I hope so, sir," said Diamond.

      "And here's a book for you, full of pictures and stories and poems. I wrote it myself, chiefly for the children of the hospital where I hope Nanny is going. I don't mean I printed it, you know. I made it," added Mr. Raymond, wishing Diamond to understand that he was the author of the book.

      "I know what you mean. I make songs myself. They're awfully silly, but they please baby, and that's all they're meant for."

      "Couldn't you let me hear one of them now?" said Mr. Raymond.

      "No, sir, I couldn't. I forget them as soon as I've done with them. Besides, I couldn't make a line without baby on my knee. We make them together, you know. They're just as much baby's as mine. It's he that pulls them out of me."

      "I suspect the child's a genius," said the poet to himself, "and that's what makes people think him silly."

      Now if any of my child readers want to know what a genius is—shall I try to tell them, or shall I not? I will give them one very short answer: it means one who understands things without any other body telling him what they mean. God makes a few such now and then to teach the rest of us.

      "Do you like riddles?" asked Mr. Raymond, turning over the leaves of his own book.

      "I don't know what a riddle is," said Diamond.

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