The Stars in the Water

"My name is Terence," he said. "Now I know you are going to ask 'Terence what?' It's Terence nothing; I have no name at all except Terence."

"I know a boy named Terence," Kathleen said, "and I don't like him a bit."

"I hope that won't make any difference about your liking me," said the boy.

"Oh, not at all," said Kathleen. "It isn't his name that I don't like; it's himself. He is only just as old as I am, and he looks—" Kathleen stopped, surprised at herself, for she had not thought of it before. "He looks a little like these men here, who all seem to be so old; and, besides, he isn't nice at all."

"Then let's not talk about him," said the boy. "Will you tell me what your name is?"

"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? My name is Kathleen O'Brien."

"And must I call you Kathleen or Miss O'Brien? You see you will have to call me by my first name, because it is the only one I have, and so I think you ought to let me call you by your first name."

"But if you have only one name," Kathleen said, "it is your last name just as much as it is your first, so perhaps you ought to call me by my last one."

"Oh, no," Terence answered; "you see my name ought to be a first name, only I haven't any last one, so I think I ought to call you by your first one."

Kathleen did not say that he might, but he afterward did. She thought that it would be better to change the subject. "It's just as if we were at a picnic and had brought our own luncheon, isn't it?" she said. "And all these other people are eating just as if they were at home. Why don't we do the same way they do?"

"Because," Terence said, "we are not like them. We mustn't talk about it aloud. You see they are the Good People, and we are not. I don't know what I am at all, but you are like the people outside. I knew that as soon as I saw you, and I saw that they were going to let you eat their food. I almost wish I had let you do it now—no, I don't wish so, either. It would be mean to let you, and I don't want you to, anyway. You did come from outside, didn't you?