By this time the room was getting crowded, as the guests, invited for the evening-party, were beginning to arrive, and Lady Muriel had to devote herself to the task of welcoming them, which she did with the sweetest grace imaginable. Sylvie and Bruno stood by her, deeply interested in the process.

`I hope you like my friends?' she said to them. `Specially my dear old friend, Mein Herr (What's become of him, I wonder? Oh, there he is!), that old gentleman in spectacles, with a long beard!'

`He's a grand old gentleman!' Sylvie said, gazing admiringly at `Mein Herr', who had settled down in a corner, from which his mild eyes beamed on us through a gigantic pair of spectacles. `And what a lovely beard!'

`What does he call his-self?' Bruno whispered.

`He calls himself "Mein Herr",' Sylvie whispered in reply.

Bruno shook his head impatiently. `That's what he calls his hair, not his self, oo silly!' He appealed to me. `What doos he call his self, Mister Sir?'

`That's the only name I know of,' I said. `But he looks very lonely. Don't you pity his grey hairs?'

`I pities his self,' said Bruno, still harping on the misnomer; `but I doosn't pity his hair, one bit. His hair ca'n't feel!'

`We met him this afternoon,' said Sylvie. `We'd been to see Nero, and we'd had such fun with him, making him invisible again! And we saw that nice old gentleman as we came back.'

`Well, let's go and talk to him, and cheer him up a little,' I said: `and perhaps we shall find out what he calls himself.'


  By PanEris using Melati.

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