78 TOMMY 



looking, with pathetic eagerness, for " the old 

 familiar faces." When he discovered how he had 

 been betrayed, his face went down and he suffered 

 himself to be carried quietly to the canary's cage 

 in which he was kept. 



It seemed to be time now to begin Tommy's 

 education, for I judged that, if he had been at home, 

 he would ere then have been getting nightly lessons 

 in the poacher's art. So I procured a small gecko, 

 one of those grey house lizards, with pellets at the 

 ends of their toes, which come down from the roof 

 after the lamps are lit and gorge themselves on the 

 foolish moths and plant bugs that come to the 

 light. Securing it with a thin cord tied round its 

 waist, I introduced it into Tommy's cage. He 

 looked surprised, very much surprised. He raised 

 himself to his full height. He gazed at it. He 

 curtseyed. He gave a little jump and was standing 

 with both feet on the lizard. A moment more 

 and the lizard was gliding down his throat with my 

 thin cord after it. Mr. Seton Thompson would have 

 us believe that all young things are laboriously 

 trained by their parents, just like human children, 

 and if he was an eye-witness of all the scenes that 

 he describes so vividly, it must be so with other 

 young things. But he did not know Tommy, who 

 is the bird of Minerva and evidently sprang into 

 being, like his patron goddess, with all his armour 

 on. 



After a time, when he had exchanged his infant 



