Guly heard a sound, a strange sound, something between a schoolboy snivel and a sob, and looking up, to his amazement saw a bright tear rolling down his visitor's wrinkled cheek, and his one eye, seeming to lie out farther on his face then ever, was glistening with more.
"You have never told me your name," said Guly, hoping to divert his attention.
"No,'cause I never thort you cared to know it," returned the other, wiping his eye on the cuff of his coat. "The boys call me King Richard, because, as they say, he was stoop-shouldered like me, Monsieur. They daren't exactly call me humped for fear of my crutches, hih! hih! You can call me Richard, or Dick, or what you choose."
"You musn't talk too much to Monsieur," said Wilkins, kindly; "he is too ill to hear much conversation—hurts his head."
"Hih! no, I won't hurt him. A picayune, Monsieur: I've had no bean soup, to-day. Pauvre Richard!"
Wilkins dropped a piece of silver in the claw-like hand, and went back into the store.
The dwarf sat rubbing the dime on his sleeve, brightening it, and looking curiously at it with his one eye, as if to assure himself it was good—then disposed of it somewhere about his person.
"Are you hungry, Richard?" asked the boy, eyeing him pityingly.
"Oui, Monsieur, hungry and poor and friendless. Oh, Lord! but I've got a dime to buy bread now, hih! hih! hih!"