ped 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 under-world, 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!