Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/358

 how they sold the things that cost so little. We arrived at a large village and the caravans were drawn up on the public square. One of the sides was lowered and the goods displayed temptingly for the purchasers to inspect.

"Look at the price! Look at the price!" cried my father. "You couldn't find anything like this elsewhere for the price! I don't sell 'em; I'm giving 'em away. Look at this!"

"He must have stolen them," I heard the people say when they saw the prices. If they had glanced at my shamed looks, they would have known that they were right in their suppositions.

If they did not notice me, Mattia did. "How much longer can you bear this?" he asked.

I was silent.

"Let us go back to France," he urged again. "I feel that something is going to happen, and going to happen soon. Don't you think sooner or later the police will get on to Driscoll, seeing how cheap he's selling the things? Then what'll happen?"

"Oh, Mattia...."

"If you will keep your eyes shut I must keep mine open. We shall both be arrested and we haven't done anything, but how can we prove that? Aren't we eating the food that is paid for by the money that he gets for these things?"

I had never thought of that; it struck me now like a blow in the face.

"But we earn our food," I stammered, trying to defend ourselves.