"An' that's Katie," continued Tom, indicating the girl, who at once looked foolish. "She's younger'n Lennie, but she's pretty near his size. He's another little 'un. Little an' cheeky, that's what he is. Too much cheek for his age—which is fourteen. You'll have to keep him in his place, I tell you straight."
"Ef ye ken!" murmured Len with a sour face.
Then, chirping up with a real street-arab pertness, he seemed to ignore Jack as he asked brightly of Tom:
"An' who's My Lord Duke of Early Risin', if I might be told?—For before Gosh he sports a tidy raiment."
"Now, Len, none o' yer lingo!" warned Tom.
"Who is he, anyway, as you should go tellin' him to keep me in my place?"
"No offence intended, I'm sure," said Jack pleasantly.
"Taken though!" said Lennie, with such a black look that Jack's colour rose in spite of himself.
"You keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll punch it for you," he said. He and Lennie stared each other in the eye.
Lennie had a beautiful little face, with an odd pathos like some lovely girl, and grey eyes that could change to black. Jack felt a certain pang of love for him, and in the same instant remembered that she-lioness cub of a Monica. Perhaps she too had the same odd, lovely pathos, like a young animal that runs alert and alone in the wood. Why did these children seem so motherless and fatherless, so much on their own?—It was very much how Jack felt himself. Yet he was not pathetic.