frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling and impudent
curiosity; said he had come for me, and informed me that he was a page.
"Go 'long," I said; "you ain't more than a paragraph."
It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never phazed
him; he didn't appear to know he was hurt. He began to talk and
laugh, in happy, thoughtless, boyish fashion, as we walked along,
and made himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts
of questions about myself and about my clothes, but never waited
for an answer--always chattered straight ahead, as if he didn't
know he had asked a question and wasn't expecting any reply, until
at last he happened to mention that he was born in the beginning
of the year 513.
It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said,
a little faintly:
"Maybe I didn't hear you just right. Say it again--and say it
slow. What year was it?"
"513."
"513! You don't look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger and
friendless; be honest and honorable with me. Are you in your
right mind?"
He said he was.
