his hand, or claw, rather, against all the world. I've had him half a
dozen years, and he hates me just as thoroughly now as he did when I
picked him up while I was at Jaipur."

"Have you carried him about all this time?" demanded the colonel.

"He was one of the two friends I had, one of the two I trusted,"
quietly, with a look which rather disconcerted the Anglo-Indian.

"By the actions of him I should say that he was your bitterest enemy."

"He is; yet I call him friend. There's a peculiar thing about
friendship," said the kneeling man. "We make a man our friend; we take
him on trust, frankly and loyally; we give him the best we have in us;
but we never really know. Rajah is frankly my enemy, and that's why I
love him and trust him. I should have preferred a dog; but one takes
what one can. Besides . . ." Warrington paused, thrust the perch
between the bars, and got up.

"Jah, jah, jah! Jah--jah--ja-a-a-h!" the bird shrilled.

"Oh, what a funny little bird!" cried Elsa, laughing. "What does he
say?"

"I've often wondered. It sounds like the bell-gong you hear in the
Shwe Dagon Pagoda, in Rangoon. He picked it up himself."

The colonel returned to his elderly charges and became absorbed in his
aged _Times_. If the girl wanted to pick up the riff-raff to talk to,
that was her affair. Americans were impossible, anyhow.