"Tom, open that cabinet there and bring me the watch that is under the
glass-case."
"The old, ugly watch, papa?" asked the boy, running off on his errand.
"Yes, the old, ugly watch," said papa, with a queer sort of smile.
The boy brought me. I was taken out of my case, and lay there in his
open hand.
"Once upon a time," began papa--and what a hush fell on that little
company!--"once upon a time there was a little boy,"--why was it
everyone but the children looked so grave? and why did Mr Drift push
his chair back into the shadow? why, even, did papa's voice tremble now
and then as he went on, and caught the eye first of one and then another
of his listeners?
That night he told my story--not as I have told it to you. There was
not much about Mr Drift in the story he told, and a great deal less
about himself than there might have been. But as he went on these
children crowded round me and looked with awe upon my battered body, and
read with reverence those quaintly-scratched initials, and as they
followed me in imagination from one master to another, and from one
peril to the next, ending up with the famous battle before Lucknow, they
forgot I was old and ugly, and I gradually appeared to their little eyes
one of the greatest treasures which their father's house contained.
"And here he lies in my hand, children," concluded papa; "and if you
love him as much as I do you must be very fond of him. And now, good-
night, all of you."