“Are you faint?” I asked him quickly.
“No, I am a coward,” he said, “just a plain coward. You see, I am beaten and I know it.”
“You will be all right in a few days,” I said, “and be able to criticise the food as cheerfully as any other member of my Family.” I laughed gayly enough, but he did not laugh with me. “Have you and this boy been friends a long time? Where did you meet him?” I inquired.
“In the park, some weeks ago. He has no home either. He was sleeping out and so was I. He gave me part of a newspaper to put under me, as the ground was damp. So I tried to talk to him.... He is good looking, isn’t he?”
I admitted it.
“Well, he’s a Russian dummy,” said the boy.
“He is what?” I asked.
“He just landed from Russia three months ago, and he knows very little about the English language. He doesn’t have the slightest idea what I have been talking to you about all this time. Night after night, not having any bed to sleep in, he has ‘flopped’ in the park or ‘carried the banner’ until morning.”
“So you brought him out with you?”