houses that it attracted his attention. It looked as if a bit of old
London had been left to stand while newer places grew up and hid it
from view. This was the kind of street he liked to pass through for
curiosity's sake. He knew many of them in the old quarters of many
cities. He had lived in some of them. He could find his way home from
the other end of it. Another thing than its queerness attracted him.
He heard a clamor of boys' voices, and he wanted to see what they were
doing. Sometimes, when he had reached a new place and had had that
lonely feeling, he had followed some boyish clamor of play or wrangling,
and had found a temporary friend or so.

Half-way to the street's end there was an arched brick passage. The
sound of the voices came from there--one of them high, and thinner and
shriller than the rest. Marco tramped up to the arch and looked down
through the passage. It opened on to a gray flagged space, shut in by
the railings of a black, deserted, and ancient graveyard behind a
venerable church which turned its face toward some other street. The
boys were not playing, but listening to one of their number who was
reading to them from a newspaper.

Marco walked down the passage and listened also, standing in the dark
arched outlet at its end and watching the boy who read. He was a strange
little creature with a big forehead, and deep eyes which were curiously
sharp. But this was not all. He had a hunch back, his legs seemed small
and crooked. He sat with them crossed before him on a rough wooden
platform set on low wheels, on which he evidently pushed himself about.
Near him were a number of sticks stacked together as if they were
rifles. One of the first things that Marco noticed was that he had a
savage little face marked with lines as if he had been angry all his
life.