p of
the counter between the two show-cases stood a tobacco-cutter and a
little pair of scales with a scoop lying beside it and little iron
weights in a box. The counter ran from the front window lengthwise to
the back of the shop, and at the back, on your left as you went in, was
a closed door. A wooden chair with arms stood beside the front window.
You could get behind the counter only by a swinging gate at the back
end. There was a delightful warm odour about the place, very much the
same odour Freddie liked to smell when his father opened his old
tobacco-box on the mantel-piece in the sitting-room upstairs and filled
his pipe, when he came home in the evening and put on his
carpet-slippers and spread out that everlasting newspaper that had no
pictures in it. He never could understand why his mother opened all the
windows the next morning.

"All right, young feller," said the hunchback, "we'll get on the other
side of that door, and then we'll be safe. Here we are."

They reached the door at the back of the shop, and the hunchback opened
it and pulled Freddie into the back room and closed the door behind
them. Freddie hung back a little, but his hand was gripped tight, and he
couldn't have got away if he had tugged with all his might. He was not
so much afraid now of Mr. Punch and his father, but he didn't know what
this little man was going to do with him; and besides, his father had
told him to hurry.

In this back room, near a window which looked out on the street, sat a
lady. The hunchback marched Freddie up to her and stopped there before
her, and wagged his head sidewise towards the Little Boy. The hunchback
and the Little Boy stood hand in hand, and the lady looked at them
steadily.

CHAPTER II

AUNT AMANDA AND THE TWO OLD CODGERS

"Here's Aunt Amanda," said the hunchback, standing before the lady who
was sitting near the window, and letting go of Freddie's hand, "and
here's a boy that Mr. Punch pretty near got hold of, if I hadn't come
along just in time and hustled him in here. Just look out of that
window, Aunt Amanda, and see if Mr. Punch has moved yet."

The lady did not look out of the window, but stared at Freddie with her
mouth shut tight. She had very thin lips and she pressed them tight
together; and without opening them more than a wee mite she said to the
hunchback, sternly:

"Obelilackyoomuptwonyerix."

Freddie could not understand this at all. He looked at her closely. She
wa