ly as you may put on a stopped clock,
and with his first tick he was thinking of nothing but the deceiver in
the back of the bed. He raised his head, but could only see that she had
crawled under the coverlet to escape his wrath. His mother was asleep.
Tommy sat up and peeped over the edge of the bed, then he let his eyes
wander round the room; he was looking for the girl's clothes, but they
were nowhere to be seen. It is distressing to have to tell that what was
in his mind was merely the recovery of his penny. Perhaps as they were
Sunday clothes she had hung them up in the wardrobe? He slipped on to
the floor and crossed to the wardrobe, but not even the muff could he
find. Had she been tired, and gone to bed in them? Very softly he
crawled over his mother, and pulling the coverlet off the child's face,
got the great shock of his childhood.

It was another one!

CHAPTER III

SHOWING HOW TOMMY WAS SUDDENLY TRANSFORMED INTO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN

It would have fared ill with Mrs. Sandys now, had her standoffishness to
her neighbors been repaid in the same coin, but they were full of
sympathy, especially Shovel's old girl, from whom she had often drawn
back offensively on the stair, but who nevertheless waddled up several
times a day with savory messes, explaining, when Mrs. Sandys sniffed,
that it was not the tapiocar but merely the cup that smelt of gin. When
Tommy returned the cups she noticed not only that they were suspiciously
clean, but that minute particles of the mess were adhering to his nose
and chin (perched there like shipwrecked mariners on a rock, just out of
reach of the devouring element), and after this discovery she brought
two cupfuls at a time. She was an Irish, woman who could have led the
House of Commons, and in walking she seldom raised her carpet shoes from
the ground, perhaps because of her weight, for she had an expansive
figure that bulged in all directions, and there were always bits of her
here and there that she had forgotten to lace. Round the corner was a
delightful eating-house, through whose window you were allowed to gaze
at the great sweating dumplings, and Tommy thought Shovel's mother was
rather like a dumpling that had not been a complete success. If he ever
knew her name he forgot it. Shovel, who probably had another name also,
called her his old girl or his old woman or his old lady, and it was a
sight to see her chasing him across the street when she was in liquor,
and