“Dear boy!” said his mother, “your father's the best man in the world.”
“So I thought!” returned Diamond with triumph. “I was sure of it!—Well, doesn't he take very good care of you?”
“Yes, yes, he does,” answered his mother, bursting into tears. “But who's to take care of him? And how is he to take care of us if he's got nothing to eat himself?”
“Oh dear!” said Diamond with a gasp; “hasn't he got anything to eat? Oh! I must go home to him.”
“No, no, child. He's not come to that yet. But what's to become of us, I don't know.”
“Are you very hungry, mother? There's the basket. I thought you put something to eat in it.”
“O you darling stupid! I didn't say I was hungry,” returned his mother, smiling through her tears.
“Then I don't understand you at all,” said Diamond. “Do tell me what's the matter.”
“There are people in the world who have nothing to eat, Diamond.”
“Then I suppose they don't stop in it any longer. They—they—what you call—die—don't they?”