tle
pats of the towel.

"And she says she knows the doctor does them sort o' things on the sly,
and that she shall take me away, and I don't want to go."

"Well, that didn't make you fight, did it?"

"Yes, it did, now. I was going to tell you, on'y you're in such a
hurry, I went to take a letter for Miss Rich this morning, and as I was
coming back, I meets mother, and she was asking me if I'd got any--"

"Money?" said Elizabeth promptly.

"Well, s'pose she did? If your mother warn't dead, and hadn't any
money, p'raps if she met you in the street she'd ask you for money.
Then how would you like it if four chaps come and said, `Hallo, Bottles,
how many dead 'uns have you got in the dust-hole?'"

"Lor! did they say that?" said Elizabeth, squeezing the boy's hand in
the interest she took.

"I say don't! You hurt. Here, cut up some o' that dacklum and warm it,
and stick it on. Then one on 'em said he looked through the keyhole one
day, and saw the doctor sharpening his knife; and that set mother off
crying, and she sets down on a doorstep, and goes on till she made me
wild; and the more she cried and said she'd take me away the more they
danced about, and called me body-snatcher."

"How awful!" said Elizabeth, holding a strip of diachylon at the end of
the scissors to warm at the fire.

"But I got the old woman off at last for twopence, and soon as she'd
gone I was coming home, and I met them four again, and they began at me
once more."

"Did they, though?" said Elizabeth.

"Yes, and I pitched into 'em: and so would any one, I say. Why, it's
enough to make the old woman fetch me away. I say, Liz, you don't want
me to go, do you?"

"Indeed, but I do, sir."

"No, you don't. I say, Liz, I'm so precious hungry. Got anything to
give a fellow?"

"No. You took out two slices of bread and dripping to eat as you went."

Bob nodded.

"Why you never went and give them to that old woman, did you?"

"Ah, your mother's been dead ten years," said Bob sententiously.
"S'pose I did give it to her? It was mine, and I wasn't obliged to eat
it, was I? Thankye, that'll do."

Bob patted the plaister down on his knuckles, and had reached the
kitchen door, when Elizabeth of the smudgy face called him by name, and,
with as near an approach to a smile as she could display, showed him a
piece of pudding on the cupboard shell.

"And you said you wanted me to go," said Bob, with his mouth full, after
a busy pause; "b