"You were saying a day or so ago," said the girl, slyly, "that you didn't care for anybody, or for what people thought of you."
"Yes, I do," answered the ugly duckling; "I care a lot what you folks think of me at Brenlands."
"Why?"
"Why, because you're all better than I am, and yet you never try to make me feel it; but I do all the same. And I love you three and Queen Mab; and I love the place; and I should like to live here always. But outside of that," he added quickly, "I don't care a button for anything."
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that."
"But it's a fact."
"You mean," she answered gently, "that you've said it so often that at last you're beginning to believe it's true."
A few mornings later, when the boys came down to breakfast, they were surprised, on looking out of the window, to see no less a personage than Joe Crouch weeding the garden path.
"I found he was out of work, and his parents wretchedly poor," said Queen Mab; "so I said he might come and help Jakes by doing a few odd jobs. You know the old maxim," she added, smiling—"the beet way to subdue an enemy is to turn him into a friend."
The two boys took considerable interest in Crouch, regarding him as their own particular protégé. Joe, for his part, seemed to remember their early morning encounter with gratitude, as having been the means of landing him in his present situation. He had apparently a great amount of respect for Jack, and seeing the latter cutting sticks with a blunt knife, asked leave to take it home with him, and brought it back next day with the blades shining like silver, and as sharp as razors.