“I know you couldn’t help it!” answered Clare. “What have you had to eat to-day?”
“Nothing but a beastly turnip and a wormy beet,” said Tommy. “I’m awful hungry.”
“You’d have had something better if you’d stuck by the baby, and not left her to the rats!”
“There ain’t no rats,” growled Tommy.
“Will you believe your own eyes?” returned Clare, and showed him the skin of the rat Abdiel had slain. “I’ve a great mind to make you eat it!” he added, dangling it before him by the tail.
“Shouldn’t mind,” said Tommy. “I’ve eaten a rat afore now, an’ I’m that hungry! Rats ain’t bad to eat. I don’t know about their skins!”
“Here’s a piece of bread for you. But you sha’n’t sleep with honest people like baby and Abdiel. You shall lie on the hearth-rug. Here’s a blanket and a pillow for you!”
Clare covered him up warm, thatching all with a piece of loose carpet, and he was asleep directly.
The next day all terror of the water-butt was gone from the little vagabond’s mind. He was now, however, thoroughly afraid of Clare, and his conceit that, though Clare was the stronger, he was the cleverer, was put in abeyance.