So he nudged me again (and I kicked him once more), when Alister began to explain that he wouldn’t just say that, for that during the two or three days when he was idle at Liverpool he had been into a free library to look at the papers, and had had a few words of converse with a decent kind of an old body, who was a care-taker in a museum where they bought birds and beasts and the like from seafaring men that got them in foreign parts.  So that it had occurred to him that if he could pick up a few natural curiosities in the tropics, he might do worse, supposing his cousin be still absent from Halifax, than keep himself from idleness, by taking service in our old ship, with the chance of doing a little trading at the Liverpool Museum.

“I wish I hadn’t broken that gorgeous lump of coral Alfonso gave me,” said Dennis.  “But it’s as brittle as egg-shell, though I rather fancy the half of it would astonish most museums.  You’re a wonderful boy, Alister!  Ah, we’ll all live to see the day when you’re a millionaire, laying the foundation-stone of some of these big things the Aberdeen men build, and speechifying away to the rising generation of how ye began life with nothing but a stuffed Demerary parrot in your pocket.  Willie, can’t ye lend me some kind of a gun, that I may get him a few of these highly-painted fowl of the air?  If I had but old Barney at my elbow now—­GOD rest his soul!—­we’d give a good account of ourselves among the cockatoos.  Many’s the lot of sea-birds we’ve brought home in the hooker to stuff the family pillows.  But I’m no hand at preparing a bird for stuffing.”

“I’ll cure them,” said I; “the school-master taught me.”

“Then we’re complete entirely, and Alister ’ll die Provost of Aberdeen.  Haven’t I got the whole plan in my head? (And it’s the first of the O’Moores that ever developed a genius for business!) Swap crimson macaws with green breasts in Liverpool for cheap fizzing drinks; trade them in the thirsty tropics for palm-oil; steer for the north pole, and retail that to the oleaginous Esquimaux for furs; sell them in Paris in the autumn for what’s left of the summer fashions, and bring these back to the ladies of Demerary; buy—­”

“Dennis! stop that chattering,” cried our host; “there’s some one at the door.”

We listened.  There was a disturbance below stairs, and the young officer opened the door and shouted for his servant, on which O’Brien came up three at a time.

“What is it, O’Brien?”

“A Chinese, your honour.  I asked him his business, and not a word but gibberish will he let out of him.  But he’s brought no papers nor parcels at all, and sorra peep will I let him have of your honour’s room.  The haythen thief!”

But even as O’Brien spoke, a Chinaman, in a China blue dress, passed between him and the door-post, and stood in the room.

“Who are you?” asked the engineer peremptorily.

“Ah-Fo,” was the reply, and the Chinaman bowed low.