Stranica 28 [28]
$ LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
i
his shoulders. She was willing to work early and late to help his
mamma make his small suits and keep them in order.
‘Ristycratic, is it?” she would say. ‘ Faith, an I d loike to see
the choild on Fifth Avey-zoo as looks loike him an shteps out as
handsome as himself. An’ ivvery man, woman, and choild lookin’
afther him in his bit of a black velvet skirt made out of the mis¬
thress’s ould gownd; an his little head up, an’ his curly hair flyin’
an’ shinin’. It’s loike a young lord he looks.”
Cedric did not know that he looked like a young lord; he did
not know what a lord was.. His greatest friend was the groceryman
at the corner—the cross groceryman, who was never cross to him.
His name was Mr. Hobbs, and Cedric admired and respected him
very much. He thought him a very rich and powerful person, he
had so many things in his store,—prunes and figs and oranges and
biscuits,—and he had a horse and wagon. Cedric was fond of the
milkman and the baker and the apple-woman, but he liked Mr.
Hobbs best of all, and was on terms of such intimacy with him that
he went to see him every day, and often sat with him quite a long
time, discussing the topics of the hour. It was quite surprising how
many things they found to talk about—the Fourth of July, for
instance. When they began to talk about the Fourth of July there
really seemed no end to it. Mr. Hobbs had a very bad opinion of
“the British,” and he told the whole story of the Revolution, relat¬
ing very wonderful and patriotic stories about the villainy of the
enemy and the bravery of the Revolutionary heroes, and he even
generously repeated part of the Declaration of Independence.
Cedric was so excited that his eyes shone and his cheeks were red
and his curls were all rubbed and tumbled into a yellow mop. He
could hardly wait to eat his dinner after he went home, he was so
anxious to tell hismamma. It was, perhaps, Mr. Hobbs who gave
him his first interest in politics. Mr. Hobbs was fond of reading the