Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/125

 bank. With my harp on my shoulder and Pretty-Heart in my arms I stepped up the plank.

"The monkey! the monkey!" cried the little boy, whom the lady addressed as Arthur.

I went up to him and, while he stroked and petted Pretty-Heart, I watched him. He was strapped to a board.

"Have you a father, my child?" asked the lady.

"Yes, but I am alone just now."

"For long?"

"For two months."

"Two months! Oh, poor little boy. At your age how is it that you happen to be left all alone?"

"It has to be, madam."

"Does your father make you take him a sum of money at the end of two months? Is that it?"

"No, madam, he does not force me to do anything. If I can make enough to live with my animals, that is all."

"And do you manage to get enough?"

I hesitated before replying. I felt a kind of awe, a reverence for this beautiful lady. Yet she talked to me so kindly and her voice was so sweet, that I decided to tell her the truth. There was no reason why I should not. Then I told her how Vitalis and I had been parted, that he had gone to prison because he had defended me, and how since he had gone I had been unable to make any money.

While I was talking, Arthur was playing with the dogs, but he was listening to what I said.

"Then how hungry you all must be!" he cried.