not know French, or German, or anything but English."

Once, when he was seven or eight years old, a boy had asked him what his
father's work was.

"His own father is a carpenter, and he asked me if my father was one,"
Marco brought the story to Loristan. "I said you were not. Then he asked
if you were a shoemaker, and another one said you might be a bricklayer
or a tailor--and I didn't know what to tell them." He had been out
playing in a London street, and he put a grubby little hand on his
father's arm, and clutched and almost fiercely shook it. "I wanted to
say that you were not like their fathers, not at all. I knew you were
not, though you were quite as poor. You are not a bricklayer or a
shoemaker, but a patriot--you could not be only a bricklayer--you!" He
said it grandly and with a queer indignation, his black head held up and
his eyes angry.

Loristan laid his hand against his mouth.

"Hush! hush!" he said. "Is it an insult to a man to think he may be a
carpenter or make a good suit of clothes? If I could make our clothes,
we should go better dressed. If I were a shoemaker, your toes would not
be making their way into the world as they are now." He was smiling, but
Marco saw his head held itself high, too, and his eyes were glowing as
he touched his shoulder. "I know you did not tell them I was a patriot,"
he ended. "What was it you said to them?"

"I remembered that you were nearly always writing and drawing maps, and
I said you were a writer, but I did not know what you wrote--and that
you said it was a poor trade. I heard you say that once to Lazarus. Was