cold crept in
through the poor boy's tattered dress. "I won't stay here; let us go,
let us go!"

"We've no-wheres to go to," replied Bob, in the same dull, lifeless
tone. "Never you mind the rats, Billy, them won't hurt you," he added.

Hurt him! not we! If ever I felt pity it was for those ragged little
urchins. We were well-fed, but they were hungry; Nature had given us
sleek warm coats, but they trembled with cold. It was very clear that it
was much harder to them to support life than if they had been rats.
I wondered if in this great city there were many such helpless children,
and if there were none to care for them!

"I say, Ratto," observed Oddity, licking his soft coat till the
beautiful polish upon it made one almost forget its ugly colour, "'tis a
pity that these children are so dirty; but may be they are not so
particular about such matters as we rats."

In time a sort of acquaintance grew up between me and the ragged boys.
We ceased to fear each other, and I would venture almost close to
Billy's thin little hand when he had a crust of bread to eat, for he
always broke off a little bit for me. The poor little fellow was
crippled and lame, so he rarely left the shed. Bob often went out in
the morning, and returned when it was growing dark, sometimes with food,
and sometimes without it; but whenever he had anything to eat, he always
shared it with his little lame brother. I see them now, crouched close
up together for the sake of warmth. Sometimes Billy cried from hunger
and cold, and his tears made long lines down his grimy face. Bob never
cried, he suffered quite quietly; he patted his little brother's shaggy
head, and spoke kindly to him, in his dull, cheerless way. I felt more
sorry for him than for Billy.

The little one was the more talkative of the two. Perhaps he was more
lively in his nature; or perhaps, from having been a shorter time in a
world of sorrow, he had not learned its sad lessons so well. I certainly
never heard him laugh but once, and then it was when Oddity, who was
more shy than I, ventured for the first time since Billy's coming to
cross the shed.

"Oh! look-- look, Bob! what a funny rat! what a beauty rat!" he cried,
clapping his bony hands together with childish glee.

It was comical to see the expression on Oddity's blunt face on hearing
this unexpected compliment, perhaps the first that he had ever received
in his life. It was enough to have turned the head of a less sober