76 TOMMY 



clamber to the entrance of the nursery and, losing 

 his balance, toppled over into the garden. He kept 

 cool, however, and tried to conceal himself, but 

 Hurree the malee, watering the plants early in the 

 morning, spied him lying with his face on the earth 

 and brought him to us. 



He seemed dead, but he was very much alive, as 

 appeared when he was made to sit up and turned 

 those wonderful eyes of his upon us. He was a 

 droll little object at that time, nearly globular in 

 form and covered with down, like a toy for children 

 to play with. His head turned like a revolving 

 lighthouse and flared those eyes upon you wherever 

 you went, great luminous orbs, black-centred and 

 gold-ringed and full of silent wonder, or, I should 

 rather say, surprise. This never left him. To the 

 last everything that presented itself to his gaze, 

 though he had seen it a hundred times, seemed to 

 fill him with fresh surprise. Nothing ever. became 

 familiar. What an enviable cast of mind ! It must 

 make the brightness of childhood perennial. 



There was some discussion as to how Tommy 

 should be fed, and we finally decided that one should 

 try to open the small hooked beak, whose point 

 could just be detected protruding from a nest of 

 fluff, while another held a piece of raw meat ready 

 to pop in. It did not look an easy job, but we had 

 scarcely set about it when Tommy himself solved 

 the difficulty by plucking the meat out of our 

 fingers and swallowing it. This early intimation 



