ily and contentedly, provided no policeman interfered with his
enjoyment.

But to-day the weather had been altogether too bad for any person to
come out of doors, except those who were bent on business; and they
hurried along the muddy streets, too anxious to get on quickly to pay
any heed to Tim, trotting alongside of them with some damp boxes of
matches to sell. The rainy day was hard upon him. His last meal had
been his supper the night before--a crust his father had given him,
about half as big as it should have been to satisfy him. When he awoke
in the morning, he had already a good appetite, and ever since, all
the long day through, from hour to hour, his hunger had been growing
keener, until now it made him almost sick and faint to stand and stare
at the good things displayed in such abundance inside the shop window.

Tim had no idea of going in to beg. It was far too grand a place for
that; and the customers going in and out were mostly smart young
maid-servants, who were far too fine for him to speak to.

There were bread shops nearer home, where he might have gone, being
himself an occasional customer, and asked if they could not find such
a thing as an old crust to give him; but this shop was a very
different place from those. There was scarcely a thing he knew the
name of. At the back of the shop there were some loaves; but even
those looked different from what he, and folks like him, bought. His
hungry, eager eyes gazed at them, and his teeth and mouth moved now
and then, unknown to himself, as if he was eating something
ravenously; but he did not venture to go in.

At last Tim gave a great start. A customer, whom he knew very well,
was standing at the counter, eating one of the dainty bunns. It could
be no one else but his own teacher, who taught him and seven and eight
other ragged lads like himself, in a night school not far from his
home. His hunger had made him forgetful of it; but this was one of the
evenings when the school was open, and he had promised faithfully to
be there to-night. At any rate, it would be a shelter from the rain,
which was beginning to fall steadily and heavily, now the sun was set;
and it was of no use thinking of going home, where he and his father
had only a corner of a room, and were not welcome to that if they
turned in too soon of an evening. His teacher had finished the bunn,
and was having another wrapped up in a neat paper bag, which he put
carefully into his pocket