THE LURE OF KARTABO 15 



sun never to return, and his successor Edward, 

 with unbelievably large and graceful hands and 

 feet, was a better cook, with the softest voice and 

 gentlest manner in the world. 



But Bertie was our joy and delight. He too 

 may be compared to a star — one which, origi- 

 nally bright, becomes temporarily dim, and 

 finally attains to greater magnitude than before. 

 Ultimately he became a fixed ornament of our 

 culinary and taxidermic cosmic system, and what- 

 ever he did was accomplished with the most re- 

 markable contortions of Umbs and body. To 

 watch him rake was to learn new anatomical pos- 

 sibilities; when he paddled, a surgeon would be 

 moved to astonishment; when he caught butter- 

 flies, a teacher of physical culture would not have 

 believed his eyes. 



At night, when our servants had sealed them- 

 selves hermetically in their room in the neigh- 

 boring thatched quarters, and the last squeak 

 from our cots had passed out on its journey to 

 the far distant goal of all nocturnal sounds, we 

 began to realize that our new home held many 

 more occupants than our three selves. Stealthy 

 rustlings, indistinct scrapings, and low murmurs 

 kept us interested for as long as ten minutes; 



