Loristan talked to him as they went.  He was simple enough in his statements of the situation.  There was an old sofa in Marco’s bedroom.  It was narrow and hard, as Marco’s bed itself was, but The Rat could sleep upon it.  They would share what food they had.  There were newspapers and magazines to be read.  There were papers and pencils to draw new maps and plans of battles.  There was even an old map of Samavia of Marco’s which the two boys could study together as an aid to their game.  The Rat’s eyes began to have points of fire in them.

“If I could see the papers every morning, I could fight the battles on paper by night,” he said, quite panting at the incredible vision of splendor.  Were all the kingdoms of the earth going to be given to him?  Was he going to sleep without a drunken father near him?

Was he going to have a chance to wash himself and to sit at a table and hear people say “Thank you,” and “I beg pardon,” as if they were using the most ordinary fashion of speech?  His own father, before he had sunk into the depths, had lived and spoken in this way.

“When I have time, we will see who can draw up the best plans,” Loristan said.

“Do you mean that you’ll look at mine then—­when you have time?” asked The Rat, hesitatingly.  “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Yes,” answered Loristan, “I’ll look at them, and we’ll talk them over.”

As they went on, he told him that he and Marco could do many things together.  They could go to museums and galleries, and Marco could show him what he himself was familiar with.

“My father said you wouldn’t let him come back to Barracks when you found out about it,” The Rat said, hesitating again and growing hot because he remembered so many ugly past days.  “But—­but I swear I won’t do him any harm, sir.  I won’t!”

“When I said I believed you could be trusted, I meant several things,” Loristan answered him.  “That was one of them.  You’re a new recruit.  You and Marco are both under a commanding officer.”  He said the words because he knew they would elate him and stir his blood.

XII

“ONLY TWO BOYS”

The words did elate him, and his blood was stirred by them every time they returned to his mind.  He remembered them through the days and nights that followed.  He sometimes, indeed, awakened from his deep sleep on the hard and narrow sofa in Marco’s room, and found that he was saying them half aloud to himself.  The hardness of the sofa did not prevent his resting as he had never rested before in his life.  By contrast with the past he had known, this poor existence was comfort which verged on luxury.  He got into the battered tin bath every morning, he sat at the clean table, and could look at Loristan and speak to him and hear his voice.  His chief trouble was that he could hardly keep his eyes off him, and he was a little afraid he might be annoyed.  But he could not bear to lose a look or a movement.