"Do you mean that you'll look at mine then--when you have time?" asked The Rat, hesitatingly. "I wasn't expecting that." "Yes," answered Loristan, "I'll look at them, and we'll talk them over." As they went on, he told him that he and Marco could do many things together. They could go to museums and galleries, and Marco could show him what he himself was familiar with. "My father said you wouldn't let him come back to Barracks when you found out about it," The Rat said, hesitating again and growing hot because he remembered so many ugly past days. "But--but I swear I won't do him any harm, sir. I won't!" "When I said I believed you could be trusted, I meant several things," Loristan answered him. "That was one of them. You're a new recruit. You and Marco are both under a commanding officer." He said the words because he knew they would elate him and stir his blood. XII "ONLY TWO BOYS" The words did elate him, and his blood was stirred by them every time they returned to his mind. He remembered them through the days and nights that followed. He sometimes, indeed, awakened from his deep sleep on the hard and narrow sofa in Marco's room, and found that he was saying them half aloud to himself. The hardness of the sofa did not prevent his resting as he had never rested before in his life. By contrast with the past he had known, this poor existence was comfort which verged on luxury. He got into the battered tin bath every morning, he sat at the clean table, and could look at Loristan and speak to him and hear his voice. His chief trouble was that he could hardly keep his eyes off him, and he was a little afraid he might be annoyed. But he could not bear to lose a look or a movement. At the end of the second day, he found his way, at some trouble, to Lazarus's small back room at the top of the house. "Will you let me come in and talk a bit?" he said. When he went in, he was obliged to sit on the top of Lazarus's wooden box because there was nothing else for him. "I want to ask you," he plunged into his talk at once, "do you think he minds me looking at him so much? I can't help it--but if he hates it--well--I'll try and keep my eyes on the table." "The Master is used to being looked at," Lazarus made answer. "But it would be well to ask himself. He likes open speech." "I want to find out everything he likes and everything he doesn't like," The Rat said. "I want--isn't there anything--anything you'd let me do for him? It wouldn't matter what it was. And he needn't know you are not doing it. I know you wouldn't be willing to give up anything particular. But you wait on him night and day. Couldn't you give up something to me?" Lazarus pierced him with keen eyes. He did not answer for several seconds. "Now and then," he said gruffly at last, "I'll let you brush his boots. But not every day--perhaps once a week." "When will you let me have my first turn?" The Rat asked.