"Dolly who?" I asked.
"Oh! just Dolly; that does." He looked away, looked back, hesitated, and swallowed. I, feeling that he perhaps needed the assistance a man sometimes requires of a woman, encouragement, smiled at him.
"You wouldn't dance this, I suppose?" he said.
"Certainly," I answered.
We danced. He was a nice boy, very much in earnest, very much afraid of tiring me, very much afraid of letting me go, too shy to stop, until I suggested it, for which act of consideration he seemed grateful.
He told me he had five brothers, all older than himself; that he never had new trousers, always the other boys' cut down; that he liked school; wanted a bicycle more than anything in the world—of his very own, of course; wanted a pony of his very own; wanted a dog of his very own. He hadn't anything of his very own.
I said I supposed he thought his eldest brother very lucky.
"Because of the trousers?" he asked.
I said, "Well, yes, I suppose he has the new ones."
"Well," he said, "you see he doesn't. That's the chowse of the whole thing. He is the eldest, but you see Dick's the biggest, so he gets the new trousers. It is hard, isn't it?"