Mr. Pigott came to the point at once.
"How's Ern?" he boomed in a voice of challenge.
Alf dropped his eyes.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "our Ern's goin the same way as dad."
Mr. Pigott gazed at him as one stupefied.
Then in a flash he understood ... Mr. Trupp was right. The boy was abnormal: his spirit dwarfed and stunted by the miserable tenement in which it was forced to dwell.
This sudden peep into one of the sewers of Nature, this illumination of what before had been to him obscure, this swift suggestion of Evil lurking obscenely in the dusk to leap on the unwary, brought him up abruptly. His anger passed for the moment. Something between fear and pity laid hold of him.
"I suppose you're glad," he said quietly.
Alf smiled that satyr-like smile of his, sickly and uncertain.
"Ah, you never did like me, Mr. Pigott!" he sneered.