Chapter 1 - Page 2

woman?"

Shovel, who had but one eye, and that bloodshot, fixed it on him
threateningly.

"The Thames is in London," he said.

"'Cos they wouldn't not have it in Thrums," replied Tommy.

"'Amstead 'Eath's in London, I tell yer," Shovel said.

"The cemetery is in Thrums," said Tommy.

"There ain't no queens in Thrums, anyhow."

"There's the auld licht minister."

"Well, then, if you jest seed Trafalgar Square!"

"If you jest seed the Thrums town-house!"

"St. Paul's ain't in Thrums."

"It would like to be."

After reflecting, Shovel said in desperation, "Well, then, my father
were once at a hanging."

Tommy replied instantly, "It were my father what was hanged."

There was no possible answer to this save a knock-down blow, but though
Tommy was vanquished in body, his spirit remained stanch; he raised his
head and gasped, "You should see how they knock down in Thrums!" It was
then that Shovel sat on him.

Such was their position when an odd figure in that house, a gentleman,
passed them without a word, so desirous was he to make a breath taken at
the foot of the close stair last him to the top. Tommy merely gaped
after this fine sight, but Shovel had experience, and "It's a kid or a
coffin." he said sharply, knowing that only birth or death brought a
doctor here.

Watching the doctor's ascent, the two boys strained their necks over the
rickety banisters, which had been polished black by trousers of the
past, and sometimes they lost him, and then they saw his legs again.

"Hello, it's your old woman!" cried Shovel. "Is she a deader?" he asked,
brightening, for funerals made a pleasant stir on the stair.

The question had no meaning for bewildered Tommy, but he saw that if his
mother was a deader, whatever that might be, he had grown great in his
companion's eye. So he hoped she was a deader.

"If it's only a kid," Shovel began, with such scorn that Tommy at once
screamed, "It ain't!" and, cross-examined, he swore eagerly that his
mother was in bed when he left her in the morning, that she was still in
bed at dinner-time, also that the sheet was over her face, also that she
was cold.

Then she was a deader and had attained distinction in the only way
possible in that street. Shovel did not shake Tommy's hand warmly, the
forms of congratulation varying in different parts of London, but he
looked his admiration so plainly that Tommy's head waggled proudly.
Evidently, whatever his mother had done redounded to his glory as well
as to