Dr. Hurst looked keenly at the boy. His face was honest; his blue eyes had a frank, open expression. It was plain he was speaking the truth.
"Then who keeps you children?"
"We keeps ourselves, sir."
"What do you mean? You're too young to work for your living."
"I shall soon be eleven, sir," said Bert, stretching his diminutive frame to its utmost height, "and Prin's two years older. I sells papers of an evening, and sometimes matches, and runs errands for people; and Prin, she minds babies and helps Mrs. Kay. But the worst of it is, Prin is not strong, and she soon gets tired. I often have to work for her as well as myself."
"Upon my word you are a brave little man," said the doctor, looking at him admiringly. He had already perceived that these children—the boy with his open, intelligent face, the girl with her pretty, delicate features—were of another type from most of the children who swarmed in that narrow slum. But he had taken it for granted that Mrs. Kay was their mother.
"Who was your father?" he asked.
"He was a scene-shifter at the theatre, sir, and mother was one of the ladies of the theatre," said Bert, with evident pride in the announcement. "We used to live near Drury Lane at one time."
He did not explain that his father had lost his work through drink, and drifted lower and lower until his death.
Dr. Hurst stood musing on the facts thus presented to him. He felt that he had not sufficiently interested himself in these children. He was naturally a kind-hearted man, but long familiarity with the squalid homes amid which his work lay had blunted his susceptibilities.