The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ this was because The Rat was in a bad humor. He sat crouched together on his platform biting his nails fiercely, his elbows on his updrawn knees, his face twisted into a hideous scowl. He did not look around, or even look up from the cracked flagstone of the pavement on which his eyes were fixed.

      Marco went forward with military step and stopped opposite to him with prompt salute.

      “Sorry to be late, sir,” he said, as if he had been a private speaking to his colonel.

      “It’s ‘im, Rat! ‘E’s come, Rat!” the Squad shouted. “Look at ‘im!”

      But The Rat would not look, and did not even move.

      “What’s the matter?” said Marco, with less ceremony than a private would have shown. “There’s no use in my coming here if you don’t want me.”

      “‘E’s got a grouch on ‘cos you’re late!” called out the head of the line. “No doin’ nothin’ when ‘e’s got a grouch on.”

      “I sha’n’t try to do anything,” said Marco, his boy-face setting itself into good stubborn lines. “That’s not what I came here for. I came to drill. I’ve been with my father. He comes first. I can’t join the Squad if he doesn’t come first. We’re not on active service, and we’re not in barracks.”

      Then The Rat moved sharply and turned to look at him.

      “I thought you weren’t coming at all!” he snapped and growled at once. “My father said you wouldn’t. He said you were a young swell for all your patched clothes. He said your father would think he was a swell, even if he was only a penny-a-liner on newspapers, and he wouldn’t let you have anything to do with a vagabond and a nuisance. Nobody begged you to join. Your father can go to blazes!”

      “Don’t you speak in that way about my father,” said Marco, quite quietly, “because I can’t knock you down.”

      “I’ll get up and let you!” began The Rat, immediately white and raging. “I can stand up with two sticks. I’ll get up and let you!”

      “No, you won’t,” said Marco. “If you want to know what my father said, I can tell you. He said I could come as often as I liked—till I found out whether we should be friends or not. He says I shall find that out for myself.”

      It was a strange thing The Rat did. It must always be remembered of him that his wretched father, who had each year sunk lower and lower in the underworld, had been a gentleman once, a man who had been familiar with good manners and had been educated in the customs of good breeding. Sometimes when he was drunk, and sometimes when he was partly sober, he talked to The Rat of many things the boy would otherwise never have heard of. That was why the lad was different from the other vagabonds. This, also, was why he suddenly altered the whole situation by doing this strange and unexpected thing. He utterly changed his expression and voice, fixing his sharp eyes shrewdly on Marco’s. It was almost as if he were asking him a conundrum. He knew it would have been one to most boys of the class he appeared outwardly to belong to. He would either know the answer or he wouldn’t.

      “I beg your pardon,” The Rat said.

      That was the conundrum. It was what a gentleman and an officer would have said, if he felt he had been mistaken or rude. He had heard that from his drunken father.

      “I beg yours—for being late,” said Marco.

      That was the right answer. It was the one another officer and gentleman would have made. It settled the matter at once, and it settled more than was apparent at the moment. It decided that Marco was one of those who knew the things The Rat’s father had once known—the things gentlemen do and say and think. Not another word was said. It was all right. Marco slipped into line with the Squad, and The Rat sat erect with his military bearing and began his drill:

      “Squad!

      “‘Tention!

      “Number!

      “Slope arms!

      “Form fours!

      “Right!

      “Quick march!

      “Halt!

      “Left turn!

      “Order arms!

      “Stand at ease!

      “Stand easy!”

      They did it so well that it was quite wonderful when one considered the limited space at their disposal. They had evidently done it often, and The Rat had been not only a smart, but a severe, officer. This morning they repeated the exercise a number of times, and even varied it with Review Drill, with which they seemed just as familiar.

      “Where did you learn it?” The Rat asked, when the arms were stacked again and Marco was sitting by him as he had sat the previous day.

      “From an old soldier. And I like to watch it, as you do.”

      “If you were a young swell in the Guards, you couldn’t be smarter at it,” The Rat said. “The way you hold yourself! The way you stand! You’ve got it! Wish I was you! It comes natural to you.”

      “I’ve always liked to watch it and try to do it myself. I did when I was a little fellow,” answered Marco.

      “I’ve been trying to kick it into these chaps for more than a year,” said The Rat. “A nice job I had of it! It nearly made me sick at first.”

      The semicircle in front of him only giggled or laughed outright. The members of it seemed to take very little offense at his cavalier treatment of them. He had evidently something to give them which was entertaining enough to make up for his tyranny and indifference. He thrust his hand into one of the pockets of his ragged coat, and drew out a piece of newspaper.

      “My father brought home this, wrapped round a loaf of bread,” he said. “See what it says there!”

      He handed it to Marco, pointing to some words printed in large letters at the head of a column. Marco looked at it and sat very still.

      The words he read were: “The Lost Prince.”

      “Silence is still the order,” was the first thought which flashed through his mind. “Silence is still the order.”

      “What does it mean?” he said aloud.

      “There isn’t much of it. I wish there was more,” The Rat said fretfully. “Read and see. Of course they say it mayn’t be true—but I believe it is. They say that people think some one knows where he is—at least where one of his descendants is. It’d be the same thing. He’d be the real king. If he’d just show himself, it might stop all the fighting. Just read.”

      Marco read, and his skin prickled as the blood went racing through his body. But his face did not change. There was a sketch of the story of the Lost Prince to begin with. It had been regarded by most people, the article said, as a sort of legend. Now there was a definite rumor that it was not a legend at all, but a part of the long past history of Samavia. It was said that through the centuries there had always been a party СКАЧАТЬ