“There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this,” he exclaimed. “Come and look at it.”

The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he turned to one of them.

“Can he do that?” he asked eagerly.

“He played on his pipe and they listened,” Mary explained. “But he doesn’t call it Magic. He says it’s because he lives on the moor so much and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps.”

Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and the spots on his cheeks burned.

“Tell me some more about him,” he said.