"What does that even mean?" Scout keeps scowling at Achilles. He's being kind and patient with Scout, but Scout has seen so many grown men be kind and patient to him and turn around and become monsters to someone else. He doesn't know which side of them is real, and it's hard to reconcile the two things in one person, so he just assumes the monster is all that's real. "He's not nice, but he's kind? How's he not a bully like you? What'd he do that's any good at all, except maybe make more bullies?"

Scout has a bleak view of humanity. Everyone, doomed to die young or grow into something heartless. The best he expects any adult is to become a monster that's self-aware, one who spurns the hypocrisy he saw in the adults around him in life.

Gavroche swings his legs, leaning back in his wrought iron chair and looking to Achilles for his answer. Gavroche is already convinced--he doesn't have such a dim view of all adults, after all--but he's still curious to hear the answers to Scout's questions anyway.