Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/67



III. THE LITTLE MAN WITH THE SMILE ILLY was a child of, and not with a gloomy family, with dimples as a boy, very grey eyes, and a roguish smile, which changed as he grew to a good-humoured one, and finally to the fixed smile of acquiescence. A tolerant smile he wore, even when his fiendish little elder sister tore at him and struck him. There was nothing but gloom at home, gloom and quarrels, shot occasionally with lurid rows. It must have taken a lot to drive a lad of Billy's nature from home, but driven he was—after his father had been driven to drink, and drank himself away from sordidly, hopeless earthly things. Billy took refuge with an aunt in London, and when she died his smile had found him friends with an old Crimean warman's family—a plasterer, who had a friend or patron, who had friends, who had a friend who helped Billy to a passage to Australia. He and his box got separated at Fenchurch station, and came together unexpectedly at Gibraltar, and that was as far as Billy ever went in confidence, or took his chosen friends on his voyage to Australia. Something was supposed to have happened to him out there, for he returned within six months. Many came and come here Rh