you? Come back here."

Marco turned back, while the boys still stared. It was as if two
leaders or generals were meeting for the first time, and the rabble,
looking on, wondered what would come of their encounter.

"The Samavians of the Iarovitch party are a bad lot and want only bad
things," said Marco, speaking first. "They care nothing for Samavia.
They only care for money and the power to make laws which will serve
them and crush everybody else. They know Nicola is a weak man, and
that, if they can crown him king, they can make him do what they like."

The fact that he spoke first, and that, though he spoke in a steady
boyish voice without swagger, he somehow seemed to take it for granted
that they would listen, made his place for him at once. Boys are
impressionable creatures, and they know a leader when they see him.
The hunchback fixed glittering eyes on him. The rabble began to murmur.

"Rat! Rat!" several voices cried at once in good strong Cockney. "Arst
'im some more, Rat!"

"Is that what they call you?" Marco asked the hunchback.

"It's what I called myself," he answered resentfully. "'The Rat.'
Look at me! Crawling round on the ground like this! Look at me!"

He made a gesture ordering his followers to move aside, and began to
push himself rapidly, with queer darts this side and that round the
inclosure. He bent his head and body, and twisted his face, and made
strange animal-like movements. He even uttered sharp squeaks as he
rushed here and there--as a rat might have done when it was being
hunted. He did it as if he were displaying an accomplishment, and his
followers' laughter was applause.

"Wasn't I like a rat?" he demanded, when he suddenly stopped.

"You made yourself like one on purpose," Marco answered. "You do it
for fun."

"Not so much fun," said The Rat. "I feel like one. Every one's my
enemy. I'm vermin. I can't fight or defend myself unless I bite. I
can bite, though." And he showed two rows of fierce, strong, white
teeth, sharper at the points than human teeth usually are. "I bite my
father when he gets drunk and beats me. I've bitten him till he's
learned to remember." He laughed a shrill, squeaking laugh. "He
hasn't tried it for three months--even when he was drunk--and he's
always drunk." Then he laughed again still more shrilly. "He's a
gentleman," he said. "I'm a gentleman's son. He was a Master at a big
school until he was kicked out--that was when