little candle.

"What on earth!" said Peter.

"Look here," said Bobbie, quickly, "you must go and get help. Go to the
nearest house."

"Yes, that's the only thing," said Peter. "Come on."

"If you take his feet and Phil and I take his head, we could carry him
to the manhole."

They did it. It was perhaps as well for the sufferer that he had fainted
again.

"Now," said Bobbie, "I'll stay with him. You take the longest bit of
candle, and, oh--be quick, for this bit won't burn long."

"I don't think Mother would like me leaving you," said Peter,
doubtfully. "Let me stay, and you and Phil go."

"No, no," said Bobbie, "you and Phil go--and lend me your knife. I'll
try to get his boot off before he wakes up again."

"I hope it's all right what we're doing," said Peter.

"Of course it's right," said Bobbie, impatiently. "What else WOULD you
do? Leave him here all alone because it's dark? Nonsense. Hurry up,
that's all."

So they hurried up.

Bobbie watched their dark figures and the little light of the little
candle with an odd feeling of having come to the end of everything. She
knew now, she thought, what nuns who were bricked up alive in convent
walls felt like. Suddenly she gave herself a little shake.

"Don't be a silly little girl," she said. She was always very angry when
anyone else called her a little girl, even if the adjective that went
first was not "silly" but "nice" or "good" or "clever." And it was only
when she was very angry with herself that she allowed Roberta to use
that expression to Bobbie.

She fixed the little candle end on a broken brick near the red-jerseyed
boy's feet. Then she opened Peter's knife. It was always hard to
manage--a halfpenny was generally needed to get it open at all. This
time Bobbie somehow got it open with her thumbnail. She broke the nail,
and it hurt horribly. Then she cut the boy's bootlace, and got the boot
off. She tried to pull off his stocking, but his leg was dreadfully
swollen, and it did not seem to be the proper shape. So she cut the
stocking down, very slowly and carefully. It was a brown, knitted
stocking, and she wondered who had knitted it, and whether it was the
boy's mother, and whether she was feeling anxious about him, and how she
would feel when he was brought home with his leg broken. When Bobbie had
got the stocking off and saw the poor leg, she felt as though the tunnel
was growing darker, and the ground felt unsteady, and nothing seemed
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