Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/193

 money, but I was often short. Nearly all the other boys had their money when they returned at night, but I scarcely ever had mine and Garofoli was mad! There is another boy here, who also shows mice, and he's taxed forty sous, and he brings that sum back every night. Several times I went out with him to see how he made it..."

He paused.

"Well?" I asked.

"Oh, the ladies always said, 'Give it to the pretty little one, not the ugly boy.' The ugly one, of course, was I; so I did not go out with him any more. A blow hurts, but it hurts more to have things like that said, and before a lot of people! You don't know that because no one has ever told you that you are ugly. Well, when Garofoli saw that beating me didn't do any good, he tried another way. Each night he took away some of my supper. It's hard, but I can't say to the people in the streets, who are watching my mice: 'Give me something or I won't get any supper to-night!' They don't give for that reason."

"Why do they give?"

"Because you are pretty and nice, or because you remind them of a little boy they've lost, not because they think you're hungry. Oh, I know their ways. Say, ain't it cold to-day?"

"Awful cold."

"I didn't get fat on begging," went on the boy. "I got so pale and then, after a time, I often heard people say: 'That poor child is starving to