That night Lazarus recounted to his master the story of the scene.  He simply repeated word for word what had been said, and Loristan listened gravely.

“We have not had time to learn much of him yet,” he commented.  “But that is a faithful soul, I think.”

A few days later, Marco missed The Rat soon after their breakfast hour.  He had gone out without saying anything to the household.  He did not return for several hours, and when he came back he looked tired.  In the afternoon he fell asleep on his sofa in Marco’s room and slept heavily.  No one asked him any questions as he volunteered no explanation.  The next day he went out again in the same mysterious manner, and the next and the next.  For an entire week he went out and returned with the tired look; but he did not explain until one morning, as he lay on his sofa before getting up, he said to Marco: 

“I’m practicing walking with my crutches.  I don’t want to go about like a rat any more.  I mean to be as near like other people as I can.  I walk farther every morning.  I began with two miles.  If I practice every day, my crutches will be like legs.”

“Shall I walk with you?” asked Marco.

“Wouldn’t you mind walking with a cripple?”

“Don’t call yourself that,” said Marco.  “We can talk together, and try to remember everything we see as we go along.”

“I want to learn to remember things.  I’d like to train myself in that way too,” The Rat answered.  “I’d give anything to know some of the things your father taught you.  I’ve got a good memory.  I remember a lot of things I don’t want to remember.  Will you go this morning?”

That morning they went, and Loristan was told the reason for their walk.  But though he knew one reason, he did not know all about it.  When The Rat was allowed his “turn” of the boot-brushing, he told more to Lazarus.

“What I want to do,” he said, “is not only walk as fast as other people do, but faster.  Acrobats train themselves to do anything.  It’s training that does it.  There might come a time when he might need some one to go on an errand quickly, and I’m going to be ready.  I’m going to train myself until he needn’t think of me as if I were only a cripple who can’t do things and has to be taken care of.  I want him to know that I’m really as strong as Marco, and where Marco can go I can go.”

“He” was what he always said, and Lazarus always understood without explanation.

“‘The Master’ is your name for him,” he had explained at the beginning.  “And I can’t call him just ‘Mister’ Loristan.  It sounds like cheek.  If he was called ‘General’ or ‘Colonel’ I could stand it—­though it wouldn’t be quite right.  Some day I shall find a name.  When I speak to him, I say ‘Sir.’”