The truth would reach her, he said, before many days were over our heads.

With that prediction, addressed to my private ear, he left us.

The removal of him from the scene was, you will please to bear in mind, the removal of an important local witness to the medical treatment of Oscar, and was, as such, an incident with a bearing of its own on the future, which claims a place for it in the present narrative.
Two more days passed, and nothing happened.

On the morning of the third day, the doctor's prophecy was all but fulfilled, through the medium of the wandering Arab of the family, our funny little Jicks.
While Lucilla and I were strolling about the garden with Oscar, the child suddenly darted out on us from behind a tree, and, seizing Oscar round the legs, hailed him affectionately at the top of her voice as "The Blue Man!" Lucilla instantly stopped, and said, "Who do you call 'The Blue Man' ?" Jicks answered boldly, "Oscar." Lucilla caught the child up in her arms.

"Why do you call Oscar 'The Blue Man' ?" she asked.