“What’s he found out?”

“Oh!” Marco answered, quite casually, “just that you can’t set savage thoughts loose in the world, any more than you can let loose savage beasts with hydrophobia.  They spread a sort of rabies, and they always tear and worry you first of all.”

“What do you mean?” The Rat gasped out.

“It’s like this,” said Marco, lying flat and cool on his hard pillow and looking at the reflection of the street lamp on the ceiling.  “That day I turned into your Barracks, without knowing that you’d think I was spying, it made you feel savage, and you threw the stone at me.  If it had made me feel savage and I’d rushed in and fought, what would have happened to all of us?”

The Rat’s spirit of generalship gave the answer.

“I should have called on the Squad to charge with fixed bayonets.  They’d have half killed you.  You’re a strong chap, and you’d have hurt a lot of them.”

A note of terror broke into his voice.  “What a fool I should have been!” he cried out.  “I should never have come here!  I should never have known him!” Even by the light of the street lamp Marco could see him begin to look almost ghastly.

“The Squad could easily have half killed me,” Marco added.  “They could have quite killed me, if they had wanted to do it.  And who would have got any good out of it?  It would only have been a street-lads’ row—­with the police and prison at the end of it.”

“But because you’d lived with him,” The Rat pondered, “you walked in as if you didn’t mind, and just asked why we did it, and looked like a stronger chap than any of us—­and different—­different.  I wondered what was the matter with you, you were so cool and steady.  I know now.  It was because you were like him.  He’d taught you.  He’s like a wizard.”

“He knows things that wizards think they know, but he knows them better,” Marco said.  “He says they’re not queer and unnatural.  They’re just simple laws of nature.  You have to be either on one side or the other, like an army.  You choose your side.  You either build up or tear down.  You either keep in the light where you can see, or you stand in the dark and fight everything that comes near you, because you can’t see and you think it’s an enemy.  No, you wouldn’t have been jealous if you’d been I and I’d been you.”

“And you’re not?” The Rat’s sharp voice was almost hollow.  “You’ll swear you’re not?”

“I’m not,” said Marco.

The Rat’s excitement even increased a shade as he poured forth his confession.

“I was afraid,” he said.  “I’ve been afraid every day since I came here.  I’ll tell you straight out.  It seemed just natural that you and Lazarus wouldn’t stand me, just as I wouldn’t have stood you.  It seemed just natural that you’d work together to throw me out.  I knew how I should have worked myself.  Marco—­I said I’d tell you straight out—­I’m jealous of you.  I’m jealous of Lazarus.  It makes me wild when I see you both knowing all about him, and fit and ready to do anything he wants done.  I’m not ready and I’m not fit.”