“My father said yesterday that you had a big brain and a strong will,” he answered from his bed.  “He said that you had a wonderful memory which only needed exercising.  He said it after he looked over the list you made of the things you had seen in the Tower.”

The Rat shuffled on his sofa and clasped his knees tighter.

“Did he?  Did he?” he said.

He rested his chin upon his knees for a few minutes and stared straight before him.  Then he turned to the bed.

“Marco,” he said, in a rather hoarse voice, a queer voice; “are you jealous?”

“Jealous,” said Marco; “why?”

“I mean, have you ever been jealous?  Do you know what it is like?”

“I don’t think I do,” answered Marco, staring a little.

“Are you ever jealous of Lazarus because he’s always with your father—­because he’s with him oftener than you are—­and knows about his work—­and can do things for him you can’t?  I mean, are you jealous of—­your father?”

Marco loosed his arms from his knees and lay down flat on his pillow.

“No, I’m not.  The more people love and serve him, the better,” he said.  “The only thing I care for is—­is him.  I just care for him.  Lazarus does too.  Don’t you?”

The Rat was greatly excited internally.  He had been thinking of this thing a great deal.  The thought had sometimes terrified him.  He might as well have it out now if he could.  If he could get at the truth, everything would be easier.  But would Marco really tell him?

“Don’t you mind?” he said, still hoarse and eager—­“don’t you mind how much I care for him?  Could it ever make you feel savage?  Could it ever set you thinking I was nothing but—­what I am—­and that it was cheek of me to push myself in and fasten on to a gentleman who only took me up for charity?  Here’s the living truth,” he ended in an outburst; “if I were you and you were me, that’s what I should be thinking.  I know it is.  I couldn’t help it.  I should see every low thing there was in you, in your manners and your voice and your looks.  I should see nothing but the contrast between you and me and between you and him.  I should be so jealous that I should just rage.  I should hate you—­and I should despise you!”

He had wrought himself up to such a passion of feeling that he set Marco thinking that what he was hearing meant strange and strong emotions such as he himself had never experienced.  The Rat had been thinking over all this in secret for some time, it was evident.  Marco lay still a few minutes and thought it over.  Then he found something to say, just as he had found something before.

“You might, if you were with other people who thought in the same way,” he said, “and if you hadn’t found out that it is such a mistake to think in that way, that it’s even stupid.  But, you see, if you were I, you would have lived with my father, and he’d have told you what he knows—­what he’s been finding out all his life.”