As the boy turned to get it, his eyes met Charles's, and he stopped, parting the long hair from his forehead, and gazing on him, till the beautiful little face—beautiful through dirt and ignorance and neglect—lit up with a smile, as Charles looked at him, with the kind, honest old expression. And so began their acquaintance, almost comically at first.
Charles don't care to talk much about that boy now. If he ever does, it is to recall his comical, humorous sayings and doings in the first part of their strange friendship. He never speaks of the end, even to me.
The boy stood smiling at him, as I said, holding his long hair out of his eyes; and Charles looked on him and laughed, and forgot all about Welter and the rest of them at once.
"I want my boots cleaned," he said.
The boy said, "I can't clean they dratted top-boots. I cleaned a groom's boots a Toosday, and he punched my block because I blacked the tops. Where did that button go?"
And Charles said, "You can clean the lower part of my boots, and do no harm. Your button is here against the lamp-post."
The boy picked it up, and got his apparatus ready. But, before he began, he looked up in Charles's face, as if he was going to speak; then he began vigorously, but in half a minute looked up again, and stopped.
Charles saw that the boy liked him, and wanted to talk to him; so he began, severely—
"How came you to be playing fives with a brass button, eh?"