The night had fallen, and in the cleared sky the stars shone bright.  Paul, his head against the lintel of the van door, looked up at them, enthralled by the talk of Barney Bill.  The vagabond merchant had the slight drawling inflection of the Home Counties, which gave a soothing effect to a naturally soft voice.  To Paul it was the pipes of Pan.

“It mightn’t suit everybody,” said Barney Bill philosophically.  “Some folks prefer gas to laylock.  I don’t say that they’re wrong.  But I likes laylock.”

“What’s laylock?” asked Paul.

His friend explained.  No lilac bloomed in the blighted Springs of Bludston.

“Does it smell sweet?”

“Yuss.  So does the may and the syringa and the new-mown hay and the seaweed.  Never smelt any of ’em?”

“No,” sighed Paul, sensuously conscious of new and vague horizons.  “I once smelled summat sweet,” he said dreamily.  “It wur a lady.”

“D’ye mean a woman?”

“No.  A lady.  Like what yo’ read of.”

“I’ve heard as they do smell good; like violets—­some on ’em,” the philosopher remarked.

Drawn magnetically to this spiritual brother, Paul said almost without volition, “She said I were the son of a prince.”

“Son of a wot?” cried Barney Bill, sitting up with a jerk that shook a volume or two onto the ground.

Paul repeated the startling word.

“Lor’ lumme!” exclaimed the other, “don’t yer know who yer father was?”

Paul told of his disastrous attempts to pierce the mystery of his birth.

“A frying-pan?  Did she now?  That’s a mother for yer.”

Paul disowned her.  He disowned her with reprehensible emphasis.

Barney Bill pulled reflectively at his pipe.  Then he laid a bony hand on the boy’s shoulder.  “Who do you think yer mother was?” he asked gravely.  “A princess?”

“Ay, why not?” said Paul.

“Why not?” echoed Barney Bill.  “Why not?  You’re a blooming lucky kid.  I wish I was a missin’ heir.  I know what I’d do.”

“What?” asked Paul, the ingenuous.

“I’d find my ’igh-born parents.”

“How?” asked Paul.

“I’d go through the whole of England, asking all the princes I met.  You don’t meet ’em at every village pump, ye know,” he added quickly, lest the boy, detecting the bantering note, should freeze into reserve; “but, if you keep yer eyes skinned and yer ears standing up, you can learn where they are.  Lor’ lumme!  I wouldn’t be a little nigger slave in a factory if I was the missin’ heir.  Not much.  I wouldn’t be starved and beaten by Sam and Polly Button.  Not me.  D’ye think yer aforesaid ’igh-born parents are going to dive down into this stinkin’ suburb of hell to find yer out?  Not likely.  You’ve got to find ’em sonny.  Yer can find anybody on the ’ighroad if yer tramps long enough.  What d’yer think?”

“I’ll find ’em,” said Paul, in dizzy contemplation of possibilities.