“That’s what I’d like.  You see,” she began, “I been laid up three weeks in ‘orspital—­the Good Samaritan, if you know it—­along o’ bein’ kicked by a pony.  End o’ last week they brought in a woman—­dyin’ she was, an’ in a dreadful state, an’ talkin’.  I ought to know, ’cos they put her next bed to mine; s’pose they thought she’d be company.  All o’ one night she never stopped talkin’, callin’ out for somebody she called Arthur.  ‘Seemed as she couldn’ die easy until she’d seen ’im.  Next day—­that’s yesterday—­her mind was clearer, an’ I arsked her who Arthur was an’ where he lived, if one had a mind to fetch ’im.  I got out of her that he was called Arthur Miles Surname Chandon, an’ that he lived at ‘Oly Innercents.  So this mornin’, bein’ allowed out, I went down to the place an’ arsked to see Arthur Miles Surname Chandon.  First thing I noticed was they didn’ know he was called Chandon, for Glasson took a piece o’ paper an’ wrote it down.  I was afraid of Glasson, an’ pitched that yarn about an aunt o’ mine, which was all kid.  I never ’ad no aunt.”

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Tilda.”

“Tilda what?”

“That’s what they all arsks,” said Tilda wearily.  “I dunno.  If a body can’t do without father an’ mother, I’ll make up a couple to please you, same as I made up a aunt for Glasson.  Maggs’s Circus is where I belong to, an’ there ’twas Tilda, or ‘The Child Acrobat’ when they billed me.”

“You don’t look much like an acrobat,” commented Mr. Hucks.

“Don’t I?  Well, you needn’t to take that on trust, anyway.”

The child stepped down from the packing-case, stretched both arms straight above her, and began to bend the upper part of her body slowly backward, as though to touch her heels with the backs of her fingers, but desisted half-way with a cry of pain.  “Ow!  It hurts.”  She stood erect again with tears in her eyes.  “But ’Dolph will show you,” she added upon a sudden happy thought, and kneeling, stretched out an arm horizontally.

“Hep, ’Dolph!”

The dog, with a bark of intelligence, sprang across her arm, turned on his hind legs, and sprang back again.  She crooked her arm so that the tips of her fingers touched her hip, and with another bark he leapt between arm and body as through a hoop.

“He don’t properly belong to me,” explained Tilda.  “He belongs to Bill, that works the engine on Gavel’s roundabouts; but he larned his tricks off me.  That’ll do, ‘Dolph; go an’ lie down.”

“He’s a clever dog, and I beg his pardon for kicking him,” said Mr. Hucks with a twinkle.

“He’s better ’n clever.  Why, ’twas ’Dolph that got us out.”

“What, from the Orph’nage?”