The fact that he spoke first, and that, though he spoke in a steady boyish voice without swagger, he somehow seemed to take it for granted that they would listen, made his place for him at once.  Boys are impressionable creatures, and they know a leader when they see him.  The hunchback fixed glittering eyes on him.  The rabble began to murmur.

“Rat!  Rat!” several voices cried at once in good strong Cockney.  “Arst ’im some more, Rat!”

“Is that what they call you?” Marco asked the hunchback.

“It’s what I called myself,” he answered resentfully. “‘The Rat.’  Look at me!  Crawling round on the ground like this!  Look at me!”

He made a gesture ordering his followers to move aside, and began to push himself rapidly, with queer darts this side and that round the inclosure.  He bent his head and body, and twisted his face, and made strange animal-like movements.  He even uttered sharp squeaks as he rushed here and there—­as a rat might have done when it was being hunted.  He did it as if he were displaying an accomplishment, and his followers’ laughter was applause.

“Wasn’t I like a rat?” he demanded, when he suddenly stopped.

“You made yourself like one on purpose,” Marco answered.  “You do it for fun.”

“Not so much fun,” said The Rat.  “I feel like one.  Every one’s my enemy.  I’m vermin.  I can’t fight or defend myself unless I bite.  I can bite, though.”  And he showed two rows of fierce, strong, white teeth, sharper at the points than human teeth usually are.  “I bite my father when he gets drunk and beats me.  I’ve bitten him till he’s learned to remember.”  He laughed a shrill, squeaking laugh.  “He hasn’t tried it for three months—­even when he was drunk—­and he’s always drunk.”  Then he laughed again still more shrilly.  “He’s a gentleman,” he said.  “I’m a gentleman’s son.  He was a Master at a big school until he was kicked out—­that was when I was four and my mother died.  I’m thirteen now.  How old are you?”

“I’m twelve,” answered Marco.

The Rat twisted his face enviously.

“I wish I was your size!  Are you a gentleman’s son?  You look as if you were.”

“I’m a very poor man’s son,” was Marco’s answer.  “My father is a writer.”

“Then, ten to one, he’s a sort of gentleman,” said The Rat.  Then quite suddenly he threw another question at him.  “What’s the name of the other Samavian party?”

“The Maranovitch.  The Maranovitch and the Iarovitch have been fighting with each other for five hundred years.  First one dynasty rules, and then the other gets in when it has killed somebody as it killed King Maran,” Marco answered without hesitation.

“What was the name of the dynasty that ruled before they began fighting?  The first Maranovitch assassinated the last of them,” The Rat asked him.

“The Fedorovitch,” said Marco.  “The last one was a bad king.”

“His son was the one they never found again,” said The Rat.  “The one they call the Lost Prince.”