"Yes I am," the boy said, rising to his feet. "What do you want with me?"
"I want to have a talk with you," John said. "I am one of the governor's bodyguard; and I think, perhaps, you may be able to give us some useful information."
"Well, come away from here," the boy said, "else we shall be having her--" and he nodded to the house, "--coming out with a stick."
"You have rather a hard time of it, from what I hear," John began, when they stopped at the wall, a short distance away from the house.
"I have that," the boy said. "I look like it, don't I?"
"You do," John agreed, looking at the boy's thin, half-starved figure; "and yet, there is plenty to eat in the town."
"There may be," the boy said; "anyhow, I don't get my share. Father is away fighting on the wall, and so she's worse than ever. She is always beating me, and I dare not go back, now. I told her, this morning, the sooner the Romans came in, the better I should be pleased. They could only kill me, and there would be an end of it; but they would send her to Rome for a slave, and then she would see how she liked being cuffed and beaten, all day."
"And you are hungry, now?" John asked.
"I am pretty near always hungry," the boy said.
"Well, come along with me, then. I have got a little room to myself, and you shall have as much to eat as you like."