a child and a dog sat very close to the fast-expiring embers of a small fire in a shabby london attic.
the dog was very old, with palsied, shaking limbs, eyes half-blind, and an appearance about his whole person of almost disreputable ugliness and decrepitude, he was a large white-and-liver-colored[pg 174] dog, of no particular breed, and certainly of no particular beauty. never, even in his best days, could this dog have been at all good-looking. the child who crouched close to him was small and thin. he was a pale child, with big, sorrowful eyes, and that shrunken appearance of the whole little frame which proclaims but too clearly that bread-and-milk have not sufficiently nourished it.
he sat very close to the old dog, half-supporting himself against him; his head was bent forward on his little chest—he was half-asleep.
a little apart from the dog and the sleepy child stood a very bright boy, a boy with rosy cheeks and sparkling eye. he poised himself for a moment on one leg, kicked off the snow from his ragged trousers with the other, then flinging his cap and an old broom into a corner of the attic, he sang out in a clear, ringing tone:
"hillow! pepper and trusty, is that h'all the welcome yer 'ave to give to a feller?"
at the first sound of his voice the dog feebly[pg 175] wagged his tail and the little child started to his feet.
"hillow!" he answered with a pitiful attempt at the elder boy's cheerfulness; "i 'opes as yer 'ave brought h'in some supper, tom."
"see yere," said tom, just turning back a morsel of his ragged jacket to show what really was still a pocket. this pocket bunched out now in a most suggestive manner, and pepper, thrusting in his tiny hand, pulled from it the following heterogeneous mixture: an old bone—very bare of even the pretense of meat; an orange; some nuts; a piece of moldy bread, and a nice little crisp loaf; also twopence and a halfpenny.
"ain't it prime, pepper?" said the elder boy. "yere's the bone for old trusty, and the broken bread, and the pretty little loaf, and the nuts, and th' orange, for you and me."
"oh, tom! where did you get the nuts?"
"they were throwing 'em to a dancing monkey, and an old 'oman gave me a handful h'all to myself. i say, didn't i clutch 'em!"
"well, let's crunch 'em up now," said pepper,[pg 176] whose face had grown quite bright with anticipation.
"and give trusty his bone," said tom. "i picked it h'out o' the gutter, and washed it at the pump. 'tis a real juicy bone—full o' marrow. yere, old feller! don't he move his lazy h'old sides quickly now, pepper?"
"yes," said pepper, clapping his tiny hands.
