everything about Samavia—and all the things kings have to know—and study things about laws and other countries—and about keeping silent—and about governing himself as if he were a general commanding soldiers in battle—so that he would never do anything he did not mean to do or could be ashamed of doing after it was over. And I’d have asked him to tell his son’s sons to tell their sons to learn the same things. So, you see, however long the time was, there would always be a king getting ready for Samavia—when Samavia really wanted him. And he would be a real king.”
He stopped himself suddenly and looked at the staring semicircle.
“I didn’t make that up myself,” he said. “I have heard a man who reads and knows things say it. I believe the Lost Prince would have had the same thoughts. If he had, and told them to his son, there has been a line of kings in training for Samavia for five hundred years, and perhaps one is walking about the streets of Vienna, or Budapest, or Paris, or London now, and he’d be ready if the people found out about him and called him.”
“Wisht they would!” some one yelled.
“It would be a queer secret to know all the time when no one else knew it,” The Rat communed with himself as it were, “that you were a king and you ought to be on a throne wearing a crown. I wonder if it would make a chap look different?”
He laughed his squeaky laugh, and then turned in his sudden way to Marco:
“But he’d be a fool to give up the vengeance. What is your name?”
“Marco Loristan. What’s yours? It isn’t The Rat really.”
“It’s Jem RATcliffe. That’s pretty near. Where do you live?”
“No. 7 Philibert Place.”
“This club is a soldiers’ club,” said The Rat. “It’s called the Squad. I’m the captain. ‘Tention, you fellows! Let’s show him.”
The semicircle sprang to its feet. There were about twelve lads altogether, and, when they stood upright, Marco saw at once that for some reason they were accustomed to obeying the word of command with military precision.
“Form in line!” ordered The Rat.
They did it at once, and held their backs and legs straight and their heads up amazingly well. Each had seized one of the sticks which had been stacked together like guns.
The Rat himself sat up straight on his platform. There was actually something military in the bearing of his lean body. His voice lost its squeak and its sharpness became commanding.
He put the dozen lads through the drill as if he had been a smart young officer. And the drill itself was prompt and smart enough to have done credit to practiced soldiers in barracks. It made Marco involuntarily stand very straight himself, and watch with surprised interest.
“That’s good!” he exclaimed when it was at an end. “How did you learn that?”
The Rat made a savage gesture.
“If I’d had legs to stand on, I’d have been a soldier!” he said. “I’d have enlisted in any regiment that would take me. I don’t care for anything else.”
Suddenly his face changed, and he shouted a command to his followers.
“Turn your backs!” he ordered.
And they did turn their backs and looked through the railings of the old churchyard. Marco saw that they were obeying an order which was not new to them. The Rat had thrown his arm up over his eyes and covered them. He held it there for several moments, as if he did not want to be seen. Marco turned his back as the rest had done. All at once he understood that, though The Rat was not crying, yet he was feeling something which another boy would possibly have broken down under.
“All right!” he shouted presently, and dropped his ragged-sleeved arm and sat up straight again.
“I want to go to war!” he said hoarsely. “I want to fight! I want to lead a lot of men into battle! And I haven’t got any legs. Sometimes it takes the pluck out of me.”
“You’ve not grown up yet!” said Marco. “You might get strong. No one knows what is going to happen. How did you learn to drill the club?”
“I hang about barracks. I watch and listen. I follow soldiers. If I could get books, I’d read about wars. I can’t go to libraries as you can. I can do nothing but scuffle about like a rat.”
“I can take you to some libraries,” said Marco. “There are places where boys can get in. And I can get some papers from my father.”
“Can you?” said The Rat. “Do you want to join the club?”
“Yes!” Marco answered. “I’ll speak to my father about it.”
He said it because the hungry longing for companionship in his own mind had found a sort of response in the queer hungry look in The Rat’s eyes. He wanted to see him again. Strange creature as he was, there was attraction in him. Scuffling about on his low wheeled platform, he had drawn this group of rough lads to him and made himself their commander. They obeyed him; they listened to his stories and harangues about war and soldiering; they let him drill them and give them orders. Marco knew that, when he told his father about him, he would be interested. The boy wanted to hear what Loristan would say.
“I’m going home now,” he said. “If you’re going to be here tomorrow, I will try to come.”
“We shall be here,” The Rat answered. “It’s our barracks.”
Marco drew himself up smartly and made his salute as if to a superior officer. Then he wheeled about and marched through the brick archway, and the sound of his boyish tread was as regular and decided as if he had been a man keeping time with his regiment.
“He’s been drilled himself,” said The Rat. “He knows as much as I do.”
And he sat up and stared down the passage with new interest.
V
“SILENCE IS STILL THE ORDER”
They were even poorer than usual just now, and the supper Marco and his father sat down to was scant enough. Lazarus stood upright behind his master’s chair and served him with strictest ceremony. Their poor lodgings were always kept with a soldierly cleanliness and order. When an object could be polished it was forced to shine, no grain of dust was allowed to lie undisturbed, and this perfection was not attained through the ministrations of a lodging house slavey. Lazarus made himself extremely popular by taking the work of caring for his master’s rooms entirely out of the hands of the overburdened maids of all work. He had learned to do many things in his young days in barracks. He carried about with him coarse bits of tablecloths and towels, which he laundered as if they had been the finest linen. He mended, he patched, he darned, and in the hardest fight the poor must face—the fight with dirt and dinginess—he always held his own. They had nothing but dry bread and coffee this evening, but Lazarus had made the coffee and the bread was good.
As Marco ate, he told his father the story of The Rat and his followers. Loristan listened, as the boy had known he would, with the far-off, intently-thinking smile in his dark eyes. It was a look which always fascinated Marco because it meant that he was thinking so many things. Perhaps he would tell some of them and perhaps he would not. His spell over the boy lay in the fact that to him he seemed like a wonderful book of which one had only glimpses. It was full of pictures and adventures which were true, and one could not help continually making guesses about them. Yes, the feeling that Marco had was that his father’s attraction for him was a sort of spell, and that others felt the same thing. When he stood and talked to commoner people, he held his tall body with singular quiet grace which was like power. He never stirred or moved himself as if he were nervous or uncertain. He could hold his hands (he had beautiful slender and strong hands) quite still; he could stand on his fine arched feet without shuffling