"I beg your pardon, sir," quavered the boy, alarmed at the gruff tone and iron hand. Twisting his head about, he got a glimpse of a very fat man with a round red face and protruding blue eyes.
"What made ye look so hard at my baker's boy? Anything wrong?"
"No-o!"
"Must ha' been. You glared after him like a tiger."
"Nothing was the matter except I was so hungry,—and—when I smelled the bread and meat—I couldn't help it, I suppose."
For the first time since he had become a pupil at Christ's Hospital, Samuel gave voice to his privations, and, unmanned by sheer want and exhaustion, the truth came out, while tears of misery rained down his pallid cheeks.
"Hungry!" The ejaculation came like the report of a small cannon.
Samuel could only nod in speechless, desperate assent.