Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/31

“Seems to me it’s not much use trying to change that fixed part of me when there's such a lot of other things to learn. It’d take such an awful time.”

Tony had been at the Mission for nearly three months when Colonel von Braunitz came into his life. He was a white-moustached, distinguished-looking Austrian gentleman, a globe-trotter of many years’ experience, and Tony met him during play-hours on the quay. Von Braunitz took a fancy to Tony and offered to take him to Egypt, as the boy had said he wanted to “see things.” Tony asked the Wilcoxes, who, though slightly hurt at his readiness to leave them, really found it convenient, as they were leaving Smyrna in March for a holiday in England and Tony had been rather a problem. He could not very well be left at the Mission for the next comer, as he was not one of the legitimate responsibilities, and they could not afford to take him with them.

He left next day, really sorry to say good-bye, and feeling more like a bit of driftwood than ever, especially as the understanding with Braunitz was that the position—“Which is hard to define, Anton—shall we say Court fool, or would jester please your vanity better?”—was not permanent. Tony had nodded to that.

“And—my temper is uncertain, my child. I may throw boots at you.”

“So’s mine,” said Tony with obvious truth. “I may throw them back.”

Braunitz’ bushy white eyebrows went up. “It is not necessary to be—what you call cheeky. Are you English enough to understand that, little hybrid?”

Tony grinned. “Court fools were,” he said. “Only the other day Miss Wilcox was reading about that. And I know what ‘cheeky’ means quite well—I’d rather talk English to you than French.”