“There was Grizel,” Elspeth said, rather thoughtlessly; and then Tommy frowned.

CHAPTER II

THE SEARCH FOR THE TREASURE

Six years afterwards Tommy was a famous man, as I hope you do not need to be told; but you may be wondering how it came about.  The whole question, in Pym’s words, resolves itself into how the solemn little devil got to know so much about women.  It made the world marvel when they learned his age, but no one was quite so staggered as Pym, who had seen him daily for all those years, and been damning him for his indifference to the sex during the greater part of them.

It began while he was still no more than an amanuensis, sitting with his feet in the waste-paper basket, Pym dictating from the sofa, and swearing when the words would not come unless he was perpendicular.  Among the duties of this amanuensis was to remember the name of the heroine, her appearance, and other personal details; for Pym constantly forgot them in the night, and he had to go searching back through his pages for them, cursing her so horribly that Tommy signed to Elspeth to retire to her tiny bedroom at the top of the house.  He was always most careful of Elspeth, and with the first pound he earned he insured his life, leaving all to her, but told her nothing about it, lest she should think it meant his early death.  As she grew older he also got good dull books for her from a library, and gave her a piano on the hire system, and taught her many things about life, very carefully selected from his own discoveries.

Elspeth out of the way, he could give Pym all the information wanted.  “Her name is Felicity,” he would say at the right moment; “she has curly brown hair in which the sun strays, and a blushing neck, and her eyes are like blue lakes.”

“Height!” roared Pym.  “Have I mentioned it?”

“No; but she is about five feet six.”

“How the ——­ could you know that?”

“You tell Percy’s height in his stocking-soles, and when she reached to his mouth and kissed him she had to stand on her tiptoes so to do.”

Tommy said this in a most businesslike tone, but could not help smacking his lips.  He smacked them again when he had to write:  “Have no fear, little woman; I am by your side.”  Or, “What a sweet child you are!”

Pym had probably fallen into the way of making the Percys revel in such epithets because he could not remember the girl’s name; but this delicious use of the diminutive, as addressed to full-grown ladies, went to Tommy’s head.  His solemn face kept his secret, but he had some narrow escapes; as once, when saying good-night to Elspeth, he kissed her on mouth, eyes, nose, and ears, and said:  “Shall I tuck you in, little woman?” He came to himself with a start.

“I forgot,” he said hurriedly, and got out of the room without telling her what he had forgotten.