Look at that little boy sleeping there under the railway arch in the East End of London--not the boy with the black hair and the hook nose and the square under-jaw, but the one with the curly head, the extremely dirty face, and the dimpled chin, on the tip of whose snub nose the rising sun shines with a power that causes it to resemble a glowing carbuncle on a visage still lying in shadow. That little boy's disposition is sweet. You can see it in every line, in every curve, in every dimple of his dirty little face. He has not been sweetened by training, he has had no training--at least none from man or woman with a view to his good. He has no settled principles of any kind, good or bad. All his actions are the result of impulse based on mere animal propensity, but, like every other human being, he has a conscience. At the time of his introduction to the reader his conscience is, like himself, asleep, and it has not as yet been much enlightened. His name is Stumpy, but he was never christened. Critical minds will object here that a boy would not be permitted to sleep under a railway arch, and that London houses would effectually prevent the rising sun from entering such a place. To which we reply that the arch in question was a semi-suburban arch; that it was the last, (or the first), of a series of arches, an insignificant arch under which nothing ever ran except stray cats and rats, and that it spanned a morsel of waste ground which gave upon a shabby street running due east, up which, every fine morning, the rising sun gushed in a flood of glory. Each fleeting moment increased the light on Stumpy's upturned nose, until it tipped the dimpled chin and cheeks and at last kissed his eyelids. This appeared to suggest pleasant dreams, for the boy smiled like a dirty-faced angel. He even gave vent to an imbecile laugh, and then awoke. Stumpy's eyes were huge and blue. The opening of them was like the revealing of unfathomable sky through clouds of roseate hue! They sparkled with a light all their own in addition to that of the sun, for there was in them a gleam of mischief as their owner poked his companion in the ribs and then tugged his hair. "I say, you let me alone!" growled the companion, turning uneasily on his hard couch. "I say, you get up," answered Stumpy, giving the companion a pinch on the tender part of his arm. "Come, look alive, Howlet. I sees a railway porter and a bobby." Owlet, whose nose had suggested his name, had been regardless of the poke, the tug, and the pinch, but was alive to the hint. He at once came to the sitting posture on hearing the dreaded name of "bobby," and rubbed his eyes. On seeing that there was neither policeman nor guard near, he uttered an uncomplimentary remark and was about to lie down again, but was arrested by the animated expression of his comrade's face and the heaving of his shoulders.