"I think he's a very nice man. He looks magnificent and awfully
brown."
"That's dirt," said her brother.
"It's travel," she replied indignantly.
The Tramp, when they got back, looked tidier somehow, as though the
effect of refined society had already done him good. His appearance
was less uncouth, his hair and beard a shade less hay-fieldy. It was
possible to imagine what he looked like when he was young--sure sign
of being tidy; just as to be very untidy gives an odd hint of what old
age will do eventually to face and figure. The Tramp looked younger.
They all made friends in the simple, unaffected way of birds and
animals, for at the End of the World there was no such thing as empty
formality. The children, supported by the presence of their important
uncle, asked questions, this being their natural prerogative; it came
to them as instinctively as tapping the lawn for worms comes to birds,
or scratching the earth for holes is a sign of health with rabbits. At
first shyly--then in a ceaseless, yet not too inquisitive torrent.
Questions are the sincerest form of flattery, and the Tramp,
accustomed probably to severer questions from people in uniform, was
quite delighted.
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