Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/276

262 262 'AN ODD LIFE.

"You shall know all," said Willy. " I must begin before I was born — before I could begin packing, as you put it."

His breath came and went painfully. Overwrought with curiosity as I was, I experienced a pang of compunction.

"No, no; never mind," I said; "you have not the strength to speak much — you must not waste what you have."

"It can only cost me a few minutes of life — I can spare the time," he answered, almost peevishly.

Now that he had been strung up to speaking point, he seemed to resent my diminished interest.

I put the glass of barley and water to his lips, and forced him to moisten his throat.

" I can spare the time," he repeated, while an air of grim satisfaction came over the tiny features. " I have stolen plenty — I have outwitted the arch-thief himself. I have survived my own death."

"What ! " I gasped. "Have you already died? "

" No, no," he replied fretfully ; " I am only just going to die. That is how I have survived my death. How dull you are ! "

" You were going to begin at the beginning," I murmured feebly.

" No ! What is the use of beginning at the beginning?" this enfant terrible enquired, in the same peevish tones. " I was going to begin before the beginning."

"Yes, yes," I said soothingly, patting his golden curls; " you were going to begin before you were born."

" With my mother," he said more gently. " She did not lead a very happy life — it enabled her to hymn the wrongs of her country. Her childhood was a succession of sorrows, her girlhood a mass of misfortunes ; and when she married the man she loved, she found herself deserted by him a few