give it up."

"But I am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand more closely in
his, "and you'll take care of me, won't you?"

If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one
hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man
was. "Lost!" he repeated, looking down at the child. "I am sure _I_ am.
What is to be done?"

"Where do you live?" asked the child, looking up at him wistfully.

"Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his
hotel.

"Hadn't we better go there?" said the child.

"Really," he replied, "I don't know but what we had."

So they set off, hand-in-hand. He, through comparison of himself against
his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just
developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly elevated in her own tiny
opinion by having got him so neatly out of his embarrassment.

"We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?" said Polly.

"Well," he rejoined, "I--Yes, I suppose we are."

"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child.

"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, "yes, I think I do."

"I do mine," said Polly. "Have you any brothers and sisters?"

"No. Have you?"

"Mine are dead."

"Oh!" said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of unwieldiness of
mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue
the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was
always ready for him.

"What," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, "are you going
to do to amuse me after dinner?"

"Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a loss, "I
have not the slightest idea!"

"Then I tell you what," said Polly. "Have you got any cards at your
house?"

"Plenty," said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein.

"Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me. You
mustn't blow, you know."

"Oh no," said Barbox Brothers. "No, no, no. No blowing. Blowing's not
fair."

He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic
monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his
attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful
opinion of himself by saying compassionately: "What a funny man you are!"

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger
and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for a
bad job. No giant e