"But why is he painted like that?" he asked Joby, as they took up
their song again.

"Ah, you'll larn over to St. Ann's, being one to notice things."
The nearer he came to it, the more mysterious this new home of
Taffy's seemed to grow. By-and-by Humility let down the window and
handed out a pasty. Joby searched under his seat and found a pasty,
twice the size of Taffy's, in a nose-bag. They ate as they went,
holding up their pasties from time to time and comparing progress.
Late in the afternoon they came to hedges again, and at length to an
inn; and in front of it Taffy spied his father waiting with a
farm-cart. While Joby baited his horses, the sailor-boys helped to
lift out the invalid and trans-ship the luggage; after which they
climbed on the roof again, and were jogged away northward in the
dusk, waving their caps and singing.

The most remarkable thing about the inn was its signboard. This bore
on either side the picture of an Indian queen and two blackamoor
children, all with striped parasols, walking together across a
desert. The queen on one side wore a scarlet turban and a blue robe;
but the queen on the other side wore a blue turban and a scarlet
robe. Taffy dodged from side to side, comparing them, and had not
made up his mind which he liked best when Humility called him indoors
to tea.

They had ham and eggs with their tea, which they took in a great
hurry; and then his grandmother was lifted into the cart and laid on
a bed of clean straw beside the boxes, and he and his mother
clambered up in front. So they started again, his father walking at
the horse's head. They took the road toward the sunset. As the dusk