" said Reginald. "You don't know what
you've saved me from."

"Go on," said the boy, recovering his composure in the great content of
his discovery. "I ain't saved you from nothink. Leastways unless you
was a-goin' to commit soosanside. If you was, you was a flat to come
this way. That there railway-cutting's where I'd go, and then at the
inkwidge they don't know if you did it a-purpose or was topped over by
the train, and they gives you the benefit of the doubt, and says, `Found
dead.'"

"We won't talk about it," said Reginald, smiling, the first smile that
had crossed his lips for a week. "Do you know, young 'un, I'm hungry;
are you?"

"Got any browns?" said Love.

"Not a farthing."

"More ain't I, but I'll--" He paused, and a shade of doubt crossed his
face as he went on. "Say, gov'nor, think they'd give us a brown for
this 'ere _Robinson_?"

And he pulled out his _Robinson Crusoe_ bravely and held it up.

"I'm afraid not. It only cost threepence."

Another inward debate took place; then drawing out his beloved
_Pilgrim's Progress_, he put the two books together, and said,--

"Suppose they'd give us one for them two?"

"Don't let's part with them if we can help," said Reginald. "Suppose we
try to earn something?"

The boy said nothing, but trudged on beside his protector till they
emerged from Shy Street and stood in one of the broad empty main streets
of the city.

Here Reginald, worn out with hunger and fatigue, and borne up no longer
by the energy of desperation, sank half fainting into a doorstep.

"I'm--so tired," he said; "let's rest a bit. I'll be all right--in a
minute."

Love looked at him anxiously for a moment, and then saying, "Stay you
there, gov'nor, till I come back," started off to run.

How long Reginald remained half-unconscious where the boy left him he
could not exactly tell; but when he came to himself an early streak of
dawn was lighting the sky, and Love was kneeling beside him.

"It's all right, gov'nor," said he, holding up a can of hot coffee and a
slice of bread in his hands. "Chuck these here inside yer; do you
'ear?"

Reginald put his lips eagerly to the can. It was nearly sixteen hours
since he had touched food. He drained it half empty; then stopping
suddenly, he said,--

"Have you had any yourself?"

"Me? In corse! Do you suppose I ain't 'ad a pull at it?"

"You haven't," said Reginald, eyeing him sharply, and detecting the
well-meant fraud in