The Rat grinned a little and wondered what was meant, as he followed Lazarus into the back sitting-room.

It was as dingy and gloomy as it had looked the night before, but by the daylight The Rat saw how rigidly neat it was, how well swept and free from any speck of dust, how the poor windows had been cleaned and polished, and how everything was set in order.  The coarse linen cloth on the table was fresh and spotless, so was the cheap crockery, the spoons shone with brightness.

Loristan was standing on the hearth and Marco was near him.  They were waiting for their vagabond guest as if he had been a gentleman.

The Rat hesitated and shuffled at the door for a moment, and then it suddenly occurred to him to stand as straight as he could and salute.  When he found himself in the presence of Loristan, he felt as if he ought to do something, but he did not know what.

Loristan’s recognition of his gesture and his expression as he moved forward lifted from The Rat’s shoulders a load which he himself had not known lay there.  Somehow he felt as if something new had happened to him, as if he were not mere “vermin,” after all, as if he need not be on the defensive—­even as if he need not feel so much in the dark, and like a thing there was no place in the world for.  The mere straight and far-seeing look of this man’s eyes seemed to make a place somewhere for what he looked at.  And yet what he said was quite simple.

“This is well,” he said.  “You have rested.  We will have some food, and then we will talk together.”  He made a slight gesture in the direction of the chair at the right hand of his own place.

The Rat hesitated again.  What a swell he was!  With that wave of the hand he made you feel as if you were a fellow like himself, and he was doing you some honor.

“I’m not—­” The Rat broke off and jerked his head toward Marco.  “He knows—­” he ended, “I’ve never sat at a table like this before.”

“There is not much on it.”  Loristan made the slight gesture toward the right-hand seat again and smiled.  “Let us sit down.”

The Rat obeyed him and the meal began.  There were only bread and coffee and a little butter before them.  But Lazarus presented the cups and plates on a small japanned tray as if it were a golden salver.  When he was not serving, he stood upright behind his master’s chair, as though he wore royal livery of scarlet and gold.  To the boy who had gnawed a bone or munched a crust wheresoever he found them, and with no thought but of the appeasing of his own wolfish hunger, to watch the two with whom he sat eat their simple food was a new thing.  He knew nothing of the every-day decencies of civilized people.  The Rat liked to look at them, and he found himself trying to hold his cup as Loristan did, and to sit and move as Marco was sitting and moving—­taking his bread or butter, when it was held at his side by Lazarus, as if it were a simple thing to be waited