a minute at the candle, with a pair of very bright,
sharp eyes, and then went on with his work again, as if nothing had
happened. On one side of him was a battered pint saucepan without a
handle, which was his make-believe pail; and on the other a morsel of
slate-coloured cotton rag, which stood for his flannel to wipe up with.
After scrubbing bravely for a minute or two, he took the bit of rag, and
mopped up, and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe
pail, as grave as any judge that ever sat on a Bench. By the time he
thought he had got the floor pretty dry, he raised himself upright on his
knees, and blew out a good long breath, and set his little red arms
akimbo, and nodded at Trottle.

"There!" says the child, knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown.
"Drat the dirt! I've cleaned up. Where's my beer?"

Benjamin's mother chuckled till Trottle thought she would have choked
herself.

"Lord ha' mercy on us!" says she, "just hear the imp. You would never
think he was only five years old, would you, sir? Please to tell good
Mr. Forley you saw him going on as nicely as ever, playing at being me
scouring the parlour floor, and calling for my beer afterwards. That's
his regular game, morning, noon, and night--he's never tired of it. Only
look how snug we've been and dressed him. That's my shawl a keepin his
precious little body warm, and Benjamin's nightcap a keepin his precious
little head warm, and Benjamin's stockings, drawed over his trowsers, a
keepin his precious little legs warm. He's snug and happy if ever a imp
was yet. 'Where's my beer!'--say it again, little dear, say it again!"

If Trottle had seen the boy, with a light and a fire in the room, clothed
like other children, and playing naturally with a top, or a box of
soldiers, or a bouncing big India-rubber ball, he might have been as
cheerful under the circumstances as Benjamin's mother herself. But
seeing the child reduced (as he could not help suspecting) for want of
proper toys and proper child's company, to take up with the mocking of an
old woman at her scouring-work, for something to stand in the place of a
game, Trottle, though not a family man, nevertheless felt the sight
before him to be, in its way, one of the saddest and the most pitiable
that he had ever witnessed.

"Why, my man," says he, "you're the boldest little chap in all England.
You don't seem a bit afraid of being up here all by yourself in the
da