There was, moreover, a deeper reason for our disquietude. We realized, afterward, that those children, one dark and one fair, had been quite unconscious of our existence before. Numberless times they had passed us, even crossing our land on a short cut to the forest road, but without recognition. And though, in a pause between two absorbing interests, in a moment of disengagement from the more important matters of American childhood, they now deigned to favour us with their frank attention, it was rather disparagement than curiosity they exhibited. We now know the feelings of a Living Wonder in a show. "Hello," remarked the elder, the dark one, dispassionately, and we almost jumped. The other child fixed his eye on my slippers, which were of carpet and roomy. It seemed to me that the time had come to tell them of their lack of good manners. "Hello, little boy," I replied. I decided to approach the subject of manners circuitously. "You ain't so very big yerself," said the elder boy, quite without emotion and merely as a stated fact. I admit freely that this, in the jargon of the streets, was "one on me." My general diminutiveness of person has always been more than compensated, I think, by a corresponding magnitude of mind; but one is none the less sensitive to wayside ribaldry. I have never been able to quench a certain satisfaction in the fact that the children who mocked the prophet were devoured by bears. An occasional example is certainly wholesome, if only to bring young people to their senses. "You mustn't speak like that," I said, gently. "What is your name?" "What yo' want to know for?" came the answer, and he joined his brother in examining my slippers. The baffling thing was that there was really nothing intentionally rude about these two rather pretty little fellows. They were merely exhibiting, in a somewhat disconcerting fashion, it is true, the influence of republican freedom upon natures unwarped by feudal traditions of courtesy and _noblesse oblige_. It was baffling, as I say, but encouraging for all that. I felt that if the others could restrain their indignation and I could school myself to pursue the catechism, I should eventually discover some avenue of inquiry that might lead to fresh knowledge of the _menage_ next door. I tried again. "Well, you see," I explained, "we would like to get acquainted with you. You tell us your names and we'll tell you ours. Eh?" "I know your name, I do," he said, glancing at my face for a moment. I put out my hand to calm Bill's restlessness. It appeared afterwards that she "thought she was going to choke." "Gee! you do? Well then, you can tell me yours," I went on. "Giuseppe Mazzini Carville," he returned, and before we fully realized the stupendous possibilities which this implied the younger child raised his eyes to our faces. "Want to know my name too?" he queried, not a quiver of an eyelid to show any self-consciousness.