out it. Then did Tommy desert Elspeth, and on
the stair Shovel showed him a yellow card with this printed on it:
"S.R.J.C.--Supper Ticket;" and written beneath, in a lady's hand: "Admit
Joseph Salt." The letters, Shovel explained, meant Society for the
somethink of Juvenile Criminals, and the toffs what ran it got hold of
you when you came out of quod. Then if you was willing to repent they
wrote down your name and the place what you lived at in a book, and one
of them came to see yer and give yer a ticket for the blow-out night.
This was blow-out night, and that were Shovel's ticket. He had bought it
from Hump Salt for fourpence. What you get at the blow-out was
roast-beef, plum-duff, and an orange; but when Hump saw the fourpence he
could not wait.

A favor was asked of Tommy. Shovel had been told by Hump that it was the
custom of the toffs to sit beside you and question you about your
crimes, and lacking the imagination that made Tommy such an ornament to
the house, the chances were that he would flounder in his answers and
be ejected. Hump had pointed this out to him after pocketing the
fourpence. Would Tommy, therefore, make up things for him to say;
reward, the orange.

This was a proud moment for Tommy, as Shovel's knowledge of crime was
much more extensive than his own, though they had both studied it in the
pictures of a lively newspaper subscribed to by Shovel, senior. He
became patronizing at once and rejected the orange as insufficient.

Then suppose, after he got into the hall, Shovel dropped his ticket out
at the window; Tommy could pick it up, and then it would admit him also.

Tommy liked this, but foresaw a danger: the ticket might be taken from
Shovel at the door, just as they took them from you at that singing
thing in the church he had attended with young Petey.

So help Shovel's davy, there was no fear of this. They were superior
toffs, what trusted to your honor.

Would Shovel swear to this?

He would.

But would he swear dagont?

He swore dagont; and then Tommy had him. As he was so sure of it, he
could not object to Tommy's being the one who dropped the ticket out at
the window?

Shovel did object for a time, but after a wrangle he gave up the ticket,
intending to take it from Tommy when primed with the necessary tale. So
they parted until evening, and Tommy returned to Elspeth, secretive but
elated. For the rest of the day he was in thought, now waggling his head
smugly over some da