"I don't know that I shall," rejoined Tad, his face clouding over again.
"La France is a lov'ly country, mon cher," remarked Renard. "It shall be better for you to stay here; go not back across de sea."
"But I ain't got nothin' to do here," said Tad. "No country's lovely when a chap's starvin'."
"But have you not over de sea in Angleterre some peoples dat waits for you?"
"No," replied Tad.
"Good! Den hark at me!" said Foxy, laying one brown, claw-like hand on Tad's shoulder, and fixing his yellow-green eyes on the boy's face. "Let sail away dat ship, and you take service wid me. Philipe here, and his so lov'ly monkey shall your camarades be, and we weel go togedder about, and all so gay happy be—eh?"
Tad did not answer. Here again was an offer which he did not find it easy either to accept or refuse. Instinctively, he shrank from this cat-eyed man, with his repulsive face and his strange lingo. And yet, would he be worse off with him than with his home people? For all Tad's lessons—hard though they had been—had not yet taught him that to choose the right—however unpromising—was the only safe way. He was still on the lookout for the easiest and pleasantest path through life, and had no thought of seeking first the kingdom of heaven and the righteousness of God.
Renard waited quietly for a minute or two, furtively watching the boy's face. Tad glanced round and saw him, and recoiled from him as from some poisonous reptile. Indeed his fear of the man was so real that he hesitated to say the words which would pledge him to this new and strange service. Perhaps after all he would have decided to return with Jeremiah Jackson to England, had not Phil, the organ boy, gazed wistfully up into Tad's eyes, whispering "Do—do join us! I'm that lonely and desp'rate as I don't know how to bear myself."
"You really want me?" said Tad, to whom—after all his many experiences—the thought of being wanted by some one was very sweet.
"I do, dreffully," replied the child.