"My dear fellow,
you _are_ coming to pieces," Pemberton would say to him in sceptical
remonstrance; to which the child would reply, looking at him serenely up
and down: "My dear fellow, so are you! I don't want to cast you in the
shade." Pemberton could have no rejoinder for this--the assertion so
closely represented the fact. If however the deficiencies of his own
wardrobe were a chapter by themselves he didn't like his little charge to
look too poor. Later he used to say "Well, if we're poor, why, after
all, shouldn't we look it?" and he consoled himself with thinking there
was something rather elderly and gentlemanly in Morgan's disrepair--it
differed from the untidiness of the urchin who plays and spoils his
things. He could trace perfectly the degrees by which, in proportion as
her little son confined himself to his tutor for society, Mrs. Moreen
shrewdly forbore to renew his garments. She did nothing that didn't
show, neglected him because he escaped notice, and then, as he
illustrated this clever policy, discouraged at home his public
appearances.
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