grown—yes, indeed. You were a little slip before—but now—not so 'igh no—not 'igh—but broad, strong. Oh! ze arms and legs—there's a back!”
Zachary interrupted his enthusiasm with some general remark, and they had a pleasant little tea-party. Every now and again the shop bell tinkled and Zachary went out to attend to it, and then Mr. Zanti drew near to Peter as though he were going to confide in him but he never said anything, only laughed.
Once he mentioned Stephen.
“You know where he is?” Peter broke in with an eager whisper.
“Ah, ha—that would be telling,” and Mr. Zanti winked his eye.
Peter's heart warmed under the friendliness of it all. There was very much of the boy still in him and he began to look back upon the days that he had spent with no other company than his own thoughts as cold and friendless. Zachary Tan had been always ready to receive him warmly. Why had he passed him so churlishly by and refused his outstretched hand? But there was more in it than that. Mr. Zanti attracted him most compellingly. The gaily-dressed genial man spoke to him of all the glitter and adventure of the outside world. Back, crowding upon him, came all those adventurous thoughts and desires that he had known before in Mr. Zanti's company—but tinged now by that grey threatening background of Scaw House and its melancholy inhabitants! What would he not give to escape? Perhaps Mr. Zanti! . . . The little green room began to extend its narrow walls and to include in its boundaries flashing rivers, shining cities, wide and bounteous plains. Beyond the shop—dark now with its treasures mysteriously gleaming—the steep little street held up its lamps to be transformed into yellow flame, and at its foot by the wooden jetty, as the night fell, the sea crept ever more secretly with its white fingers gleaming below the shingles of the beach.
Here was wonder and glory enough with the wind tearing and beating outside the windows, blowing the young flowers of the lamps up and down inside their glass houses and screaming down the chimneys for sheer zest of life. . . . But here it all had its centre in this little room with
