This is the story of a street boy who does the things most destitute boys do. Tode lies and steals and cheats as if without conscience, but beneath the crime and grime is a human being capable of love. The eyes of a child gazing into his own bring out feelings that Tode has never felt before. Soon his self-absorbed,
poverty-stricken existence explodes into a fervent quest to help this child and his desperate sister. From the day Tode meets the bishop, he is never the
same. No longer called Tode, but Theodore Bryan, he tries to live up to his real name by following the example of the one he admires. And that’s how a roguish street boy becomes the bishop’s shadow.