“There, Peg! uncover him quick and do some’at to bring the life back to him,” said Black Bill, a little nervously, as he himself with eager hands helped to relieve the boy of the shawl. “Meg!” called the crone to her granddaughter, “fetch a cup of water here. Bill, run and fetch a little rum.” Meg, who was idling about the place, ran and fetched a cup of water from the nearest room-neighbor. Mother Rooter dipped her fingers in the cup and sprinkled it in the boy’s face. The air had already half revived him, and the water completed the work. With a gasp and a sneeze the little fellow awoke. They gathered around him, those wretches, like a pack of wolves around a lamb. One tore off his pearl and turquoise necklace; another seized his hat and feather; another his sash; another his jeweled armlets. What a prize! CHAPTER XXXII. LITTLE LENNY’S ADVENTURES. Oh! ’tis a peerless boy, Fearless, ingenuous, courteous, capable: He’s all the mother’s, from the top to toe.—SHAKESPEARE. Was little Lenny frightened when he woke up and found himself in that strange and wretched garret, closely surrounded by new and terrible faces? Not at all. Neither by nature nor by training was the baby-boy a coward. The child of many generations of heroes had inherited no craven fears; the cherished darling of the household had been taught none. In a word, he was a plucky little fellow, afraid of neither man, beast or devil. And there was still another reason why on this occasion he was not afraid. For if, as it has been written by the prince of poets, “_music_ hath charms to soothe the savage breast,” how much more hath beautiful and gracious childhood? The wretched men and women, gathered around this pretty boy, looked on him, not with ferocious faces, but with smiles; and not with the deceitful smiles whose insincerity a child will detect more quickly than an adult can, but real, heartfelt smiles, called up by seeing among them “something better than they had known.” Yes, even while they were wresting from him his little treasures of finery and jewelry, they did it with an expression of eagerness rather than of ferocity. And little Lenny gazed on them, turning his blue eyes from one to another, not in fear, but in wonder and curiosity. Sometimes he was so much amused by their excitement that he laughed aloud. But he was as a little prince, king, or god among these poor creatures, and he knew it. For when Red Roger unclasped and snatched his elegant pearl and turquoise necklace from his neck, he suddenly put out his chubby hand and snatched it back—so suddenly and unexpectedly that he actually gained possession of it again before the slow and lumbering brute could prevent him. And after he did so he fixed his eyes indignantly upon the thief, and said: “Man! how dare you tate ’hings ’out leave?”