"Air you poor and wicked?" asked the urchin, inspecting me critically.
"Very poor, and about up to the average for iniquity," I said; and the diminutive questioner rubbed his curly locks as though puzzled.
"Well, you don't quite look neither," he commented. "Poor men don't wear new store clothes. The last one I saw had big holes in his pants, and hadn't eaten nothing for three weeks, he said. Pop, he spanked me good 'cos I gave him four dollars off'n the bureau to buy some dinner with. Say, how long was it since you had a square meal, anyway? You did mighty well at supper. I was watching you."
"It is about two months since I had a meal like that and then it was because a friend of mine gave it to me," I answered truthfully; and Leyland junior rubbed his head again.
"No—you don't look very low down, but you must be," he repeated. "Pop was talking 'bout you, and he said: 'You'll do your best to see the poor devil has a good time, 'Twoinette. From what I gather he needs it pretty bad.'"
I laughed, perhaps somewhat hollowly, for the child commented: "Won't you do that again? It's just like a loon. There's one lives over yonder, and he might answer. Ma, she says people should never make a noise when they laugh; but when I sent Ted on the roof to get my ball, and he fell into the rain-butt, she just laughed worse than you, and her teeth came out."
"Your mother would probably spank you for telling that to strangers. But who is Ted?" I said, remembering that a loon is a water-bird that sets up an unearthly shrieking in the stillness of the night; and the urchin rebuked me with the cheerful disrespect for his seniors which characterizes the Colonial born.
"Say, was you forgotten when brains were given out? He's just Ted Caryl, and I think he's bad. Pop says his firm's meaner than road agents. He comes round evenings and swops business lies with Pop, 'specially when Bee is here, but he can't be clever. Ma says he don't even know enough to be sure which girl he wants. They is two of them, and I like Lou best."
"Why?" I asked, because the urchin seemed to expect some comment; and he proceeded to convince me. "They is both pretty, but Lou is nicest. I found it out one day I'd been eating corduroy candy, and Bee she just dropped me when I got up on her knee. She didn't say anything, but she looked considerable. Then I went to Lou, and she picked me up and gave me nicer candies out of a gilt-edge box. Ma says she must have been an angel, because her dress was all sticky, and I think she is. There was one just like her with silver wings in the church at Sault Chaudiere. One night Ma and them was talking 'bout you, and Bee sits quite still as if she didn't care, but she was listening. Lou, she says: 'Poor——' I don't think it was poor devil."
"Do you know where little boys who tell all they hear go to?" I asked; and Leyland junior pointed to a dusky sail that showed up behind the island before he answered wearily: "You make me tired. I've been asked that one before. Here's Ted and the others coming. I'm off to see what they have brought for me."