Now, the mind of a child is a peculiar thing--having a tendency, by some strange gift of the gods, to retain the true and to cast aside the worthless. So it happened that the mind of little Teddy Kershaw, by some subtle process, eliminated from his father's speech all that was mere verbiage, and began to construct for itself a glorious fabric called Universal Brotherhood. Setting aside those who were well fed and prosperous, the child came to see in every houseless wanderer of the streets--in every toil-worn, white-faced man or woman--some being who had a right, not only to his pity, but to every luxury which he himself enjoyed. And the idea grew and grew until it filled his childish mind, and until--like a small and gallant Crusader--he began to feel that he must do something, more than mere thoughts and words, to carry the thing into effect. He began for the first time to notice, with a sort of pained wonder, that little children, smaller and weaker even than himself, shivered in the streets while he rolled along in his father's carriage; that women carried heavy baskets, while his own mother would scarce put her delicate feet to the ground and was buried in furs and wraps. The incongruity of it came full upon him; and he determined at last, in an inspired moment, to do something to remedy the matter. To carry out his desires in the presence of those who were responsible for him was, of course, out of the question; instead, he watched his opportunity, and slipped out of the house one day unobserved. The town house of Sir Leopold Kershaw was in a very fine and extremely aristocratic square; but quite near to it--crouching and hiding under the wing of its grandeur--was a terrible nest of slums. And into this, by some natural instinct, drifted Master Teddy Kershaw. With that newly-kindled love of humanity fairly bursting out of him he was prepared to seize the first likely wastrel by the hand and give instant effect to his father's many speeches; and he had not far to seek. Just on the borderland, where the genteel streets began to grow more shabby and where untidy women and children seemed to be overflowing out of every house, stood a costermonger's barrow, the proprietor of which was leaning, in a dejected attitude, against it. It was the poorest barrow imaginable, with one of its shafts mended with string, and with a few sorry-looking vegetables, which never by any chance could have grown in any imaginable garden, displayed upon it.