Chapter VIII. The amateur firemen.

 "That's a likely little brooch you've got on, Miss," said Perks the Porter;"I don't know as ever I see a thing more like a buttercup without it WAS a buttercup."

"Yes," said Bobbie, glad and flushed by this approval. "I always thought it was more like a buttercup almost than even a real one-- and I NEVER thought it would come to be mine, my very own--and then Mother gave it to me for my birthday."

"Oh, have you had a birthday?" said Perks; and he seemed quite surprised, as though a birthday were a thing only granted to a favoured few.

"Yes," said Bobbie;"when's your birthday, Mr. Perks?"  The children were taking tea with Mr. Perks in the Porters' room among the lamps and the railway almanacs.  They had brought their own cups and some jam turnovers.  Mr. Perks made tea in a beer can, as usual, and everyone felt very happy and confidential.

"My birthday?" said Perks, tipping some more dark brown tea out of the can into Peter's cup. "I give up keeping of my birthday afore you was born."

"But you must have been born SOMETIME, you know," said Phyllis, thoughtfully,"even if it was twenty years ago--or thirty or sixty or seventy."

"Not so long as that, Missie," Perks grinned as he answered. "If you really want to know, it was thirty-two years ago, come the fifteenth of this month."

"Then why don't you keep it?" asked Phyllis.

"I've got something else to keep b