oli 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
death.' A suffering look does what good looks can't do. But you have to
be very starved for that. They used to give me food. That was a good
time for me, because Garofoli had stopped giving me blows just then to
see if it would hurt me more to go without supper, so when I got
something to eat outside I didn't care. But one day Garofoli came along
and saw me eating something, a bowl of soup that the fruiterer gave me,
then he knew why I didn't mind going without supper at home. After that
he made me stay at home and look after the soup here. Every morning
before he goes out he puts the meat and the vegetables into the saucepan
and locks the lid on, and all I have to do is to see that it boils. I
smell the soup, but that's all. The smell of the soup doesn't feed you;
it makes you more hungry. Am I very white? As I never go out now I don't
hear people say so, and there's no mirror here."

"You don't seem any paler than others," I said.

"Ah, you say that because you don't want to frighten me, but I'm glad
I'm sick. I want to be very ill."

I looked at him in amazement.

"You don't understand," he said, with a pitiful smile. "When one is very
ill, they take care of you or they let you die. If they let me die it
will be all over, I sh