"Oh, dash it!" said Saltash. "Let's have a little sense!"

He set down the tray and flicked the fair head admonishingly, with his
thumb, still frowning. "Come! Be a sport!" he said.

After a brief pause with a tremendous effort the boy pulled himself
together and sat up, but he did not raise his eyes to Saltash again. He
kept them fixed upon his hands which were tightly clasped in front of
him.

"I'll do--whatever you tell me," he said, in a low voice. "No one has
ever been so--decent to me before."

"Have one of those rolls!" said Saltash practically. "You'll talk better
with something inside you."

He seated himself on the edge of his bunk and lit another cigarette, his
attitude one of royal indifference, but his odd eyes flashing to and fro
with a monkey-like shrewdness that missed nothing of his desolate
companion's forlorn state.

"You've been doing this starvation business for some time, haven't you?"
he asked presently. "No wonder you didn't feel like work."

The boy's pinched face smiled, a small wistful smile. "I can work," he
said. "I can do anything--women's work as well as men's. I can cook and
clean boots and knives and sew on buttons and iron trousers and wash
shirts and wait on tables and make beds and sweep and--"