does things fer people. An' I wanter b'long," he gulped, noisily.

The Young Doctor leaned against the wall. He did not realize how tall and
strong he looked, leaning there, or he could not have smiled so
whimsically. To him the small dark boy with his earnest face, standing
beside the gray kitten, was just an interesting, rather lovable joke.

"Which do you want most," he questioned, "to wear soldier clothes, or to
do things for people?"

Bennie gulped again, and shuffled his feet. His voice came, at last,
rather thickly.

"I sorter want to do things fer people!" he said.

More than anything else the Young Doctor hated folk, even children, who
say or do things for effect. And he knew well the lure that soldier
clothes hold for the small boy.

"Say, youngster," he inquired in a not too gentle voice, "are you
trying to bluff me? Or do you really mean what you're saying? And if
you do--why?"

Bennie had never been a quitter. By an effort he steadied his voice.

"I mean," he said, "what I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My
pa, he drinks. He drinks like--" The word he used, in description, was
not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An'
my big brother--he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be
like they are--not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King
Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St.
George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously
he was quoting from the gospel of Rose-Marie, "wi' my life! I wanter be a
good husban' an' father--"

All at once the Young Doctor was laughing. It was not an unkind
laugh--it gave Bennie heart to listen to it--but it was exceedingly
mirthful. Bennie could not know that the idea of himself, as a husband
and father, was sending this tall man into such spasms of merriment--he
could not know that it was rather incongruous to picture his small
grubby form in the shining armour of St. George or of King Arthur. But,
being glad that the doctor was not angry, he smiled too--his strange,
twisted little smile.

The Young Doctor stopped laughing almost as quickly as he had begun. With
something of interest in his face he surveyed the little ragged boy.

"Where," he questioned after a moment, "did you learn all of that stuff
about knights, and saints, and doing things with your life, and husbands
and fathers? Who told you about it?"

Bennie hesitated a moment. Perhaps