The boys were tearing at the delicious bread, blind and deaf to all
about them.

"P'r'aps you would like to give _me_ in charge?" pursued their
saviour.

"Sixpence," said the man sullenly.

The mechanic laid sixpence on the cover of the cart.

"I ought to ha' made you weigh and make up," he said. "Where's your
scales?"

"Mind your own business."

"I mean to. Here! I want another sixpenny loaf--but I want it weighed
this time!"

"I ain't bound to sell bread in the streets. You can go to the
shop. Them loaves is for reg'lar customers."

He moved off with his cart, and the crowd began to disperse. The boys
stood absorbed, each in what remained of his half-loaf.

When he looked up, Clare saw that they were alone. But he caught sight
of their benefactor some way off, and ran after him.

"Oh, sir!" he said, "I was so hungry, I don't know whether I thanked
you for the loaf. We'd had nothing to-day but the sweepings of a
mill."