He continued to drink; it did not come within his new code to stop,
since he could "carry his liquor well;" but he rarely, if ever,
swore. He told me this tale through the throes of his anguish as
he lay crouched on a mattress on the floor; and as the grip of the
pain took him he tore and bit at his hands until they were maimed
and bleeding, to keep the ready curses off his lips.

He told the story, but he gave no reason, offered no explanation:
he has been dead now many a year, and thus would I write his
epitaph:-

He saw the face of a little child and looked on God.



CHAPTER III



"Two began, in a low voice, 'Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this
here ought to have been a RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in
by mistake.'"

As I look round this room I feel sure Two, and Five, and Seven,
have all been at work on it, and made no mistakes, for round the
walls runs a frieze of squat standard rose-trees, red as red can
be, and just like those that Alice saw in the Queen's garden. In
between them are Chaucer's name-children, prim little daisies,
peering wideawake from green grass. This same grass has a history
which I have heard. In the original stencil for the frieze it was