 history, snatched up
her curls with his brown fist, and, discovering that there was a little ear
under them, pinched it and blew into it, pulled at her coronet of plaits, and
seemed to discover with satisfaction that it did not grow at the summit of her
head, but could be dragged down and altogether undone. Then finding that she
laughed, tossed him back, kissed, and pretended to bite him - in fact, was an
animal that understood fun - he rushed off and made Dominic bring a small
menagerie of white-mice, squirrels, and birds, with Moro, the black spaniel, to
make her acquaintance. Whomsoever Harry liked, it followed that Mr Transome must
like: Gappa, along with Nimrod the retriever, was part of the menagerie, and
perhaps endured more than all the other live creatures in the way of being
tumbled about. Seeing that Esther bore having her hair pulled down quite
merrily, and that she was willing to be harnessed and beaten, the old man began
to confide in her, in his feeble, smiling, and rather jerking fashion, Harry's
remarkable feats: how he had one day, when Gappa was asleep, unpinned a whole
drawerful of beetles, to see if they would fly away; then, disgusted with their
stupidity, was about to throw them all on the ground and stamp on them, when
Dominic came in and rescued these valuable specimens; also, how he had subtly
watched Mrs Transome at the cabinet where she kept her medicines, and, when she
had left it for a little while without locking it, had gone to the drawers and
scattered half the contents on the floor. But what old Mr Transome thought the
most wonderful proof of an almost preternatural cleverness was, that Harry would
hardly ever talk, but preferred making inarticulate noises, or combining
syllables after a method of his own.
    »He can talk well enough if he likes,« said Gappa, evidently thinking that
Harry, like the monkeys, had deep reasons for his reticence.
    »You mind him,« he added, nodding at Esther, and shaking with low-toned
laughter. »You'll hear: he knows the right names of things well enough, but he
likes to make his own. He'll give you one all to yourself before long.«
    And when Harry seemed to have made up his mind distinctly that Esther's name
was Boo, Mr Transome nodded at her with triumphant satisfaction, and then told
her in a low whisper, looking round cautiously beforehand, that Harry would
never call Mrs Transome Gamma,
