"
"How on earth did you do it?" asked Miss Farr when the shy, brown
baby had been duly welcomed. The whistler was visibly vain.
"Oh, it's quite simple. I merely talked to him in his own language."
"I see that. But where did you learn the language?"
"Well, a fellow taught me that--man I met at Ypres. He could have
whistled back the dodo, I think. He knew all kinds of calls--said
all the wild things answered to them."
"Was he a great naturalist?"
The cheerful vanity faded from Spence's face, leaving it sombre.
"He--would have been," he said briefly.
Miss Farr asked no more questions. It was a restful way she had. And
perhaps because she did not ask, the professor felt an unaccustomed
impulse. "He was a wonderful chap," he volunteered. "There are few
like him in a generation. It seemed--rather a waste."
The girl nodded. "Used or wasted--it's as it happens," she said.
"There is no plan."
"That's a heathen sentiment!" The professor recovered his
cheerfulness. "A sentiment not at all suited for the contemplation
of extreme youth."
"I am not extremely young."
"You? I was referring to our brown brother. He is becoming uneasy
again. What's the matter with him?"
Whatever was the matter, it reached, at that moment, an acute stage
and Sami disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Perhaps his
ears were sharper than theirs and his eyes keener. He may have seen
a large umbrella coming across the clearing.
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