“Bah! You ought to be above noticing the scum of the place.”
“I am, uncle, and I don’t notice them,” pleaded the boy; “it’s they who will notice me.”
“How, pray?”
“I can’t go into the place without their mobbing me and calling me names.”
“Contemptible! And pray, sir,” cried the old man, in harsh, sarcastic tones, “what do they call you?”
“All sorts of things,” replied the boy, confusedly. “I can’t recollect now. Yes, I know; sometimes they shout ‘Fox’ or ‘Foxy’ after me.”
“And pray why?”
“Because they say I’ve just come out of the Den.”
“Rubbish.”
“At other times it’s ‘Spider.’”