The lady leant across the table.
"Little boy," she said soulfully, "you must tell me all. I want to help you. I go about the world helping people, and I'm going to help you. Don't be frightened. You know people can be put in prison for being cruel to children. If I reported the case to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children——"
William was slightly taken aback.
"Oh, I wun't like you to do that!" he said hastily. "I wun't like to get them into trouble."
"Ah," she said, "but you must think of your happiness, not theirs!"
She watched, fascinated, as William finished a third plate of bread-and-butter, and yet his hunger seemed to be unappeased. She was not acquainted with the digestive capacity of an average healthy boy of eleven.
"I can see you've been starved," she said, "and I could tell at once from your expression that you were unhappy. Have you any brothers and sisters?"
William, who had now reached the second stage of his tea, put half a cake into his mouth, masticated and swallowed it before replying.
"Two," he said briefly, "one each. Grown up. But they jus' care for nothin' but their own pleasure. Why," he went on warming to his theme, "this morning I bought a few sweets with jus' a bit of money I happened to have, an' he took them from me and threw them into the fire. Jus' threw them into the fire."
The lady made the sympathetic clicking sound with her tongue.