Often when Mrs. Slater would wonder of what her son was thinking as he sat twisting string round and round in front of the fire, he would be aware of his Friend in the shadow of the light, watching gravely, in the cheerful room, having beneath his hands all the powers, good and evil, of the house.  Just as Henry pictured quite clearly to himself other occupants of the house—­some one with taloned claws behind the piano, another with black-hooded eyes and a peaked cap in the shadows of an upstairs passage, another brown, shrivelled and naked, who dwelt in a cupboard in one of the empty bedrooms so, too, he could see his Friend, vast and shadowy, with a flowing beard and eyes that were kind and shining.

Often he had felt the pressure of his hand, had heard his reassuring whisper in his ears, had known the touch of his lips upon his forehead.  No harm could come to him whilst his Friend was in the house—­and his Friend was always there.

He went always with his mother into the streets when she did her shopping or simply took the air.  It was natural that on these occasions, he should be more frightened than during his hours in the house.  In the first place his Friend did not accompany him on these out-of-door excursions, and his mother was not nearly so strong a protector as his Friend.

Then he was disturbed by the people who pressed and pushed about him—­he had a sense that they were all like birds with flapping wings and strange cries, rushing down upon him—­the colours and confusion of the shops bewildered him.  There was too much here for him properly to understand; he had enough to do with the piano, the mirror, the shadowed passages, the staring windows.

But in the Square he was happy again.  Mrs. Slater never ventured into the gardens; they were for her superiors, and she complacently accepted a world in which things were so ordered as the only world possible.  But there was plenty of life outside the gardens.

There were, on the different days of the week, the various musicians, and Henry was friendly with them all.  He delighted in music; as he stood there, listening to the barrel-organ, the ideas, pictures, dreams, flew like flocks of beautiful birds through his brain, fleet, and always just beyond his reach, so that he could catch nothing, but would nod his head and would hope that the tune would be repeated, because next time he might, perhaps, be more fortunate.

The Major, who played the harp on Saturdays, was a friend of Mrs. Slater.  “Nice little feller, that of yours, mum,” he would say. “’Ad one meself once.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, sure enough....  Nice day....  Would you believe it, this is the only London square left for us to play in?...  ’Tis, indeed.  Cruel shame, I call it; life’s ’ard....  You’re right, mum, it is.  Well, good-day.”

Mrs. Slater looked after him affectionately.  “Pore feller; and yet I dare say he makes a pretty hit of it if all was known.”