Chapter 8 - Page 2

and gamer," he whined.

"But I'm better at repenting. I tell yer, I'll cry when I'm repenting."
Tommy's face lit up, and Shovel could not help saying, with a curious
look at it:

"You--you ain't like any other cove I knows," to which Tommy replied,
also in an awe-struck voice:

"I'm so queer, Shovel, that when I thinks 'bout myself I'm--I'm
sometimes near feared."

"What makes your face for to shine like that? Is it thinking about the
blow-out?"

No, it was hardly that, but Tommy could not tell what it was. He and the
saying about art for art's sake were in the streets that night, looking
for each other.

The splendor of the brightly lighted hall, which was situated in one of
the meanest streets of perhaps the most densely populated quarter in
London, broke upon the two boys suddenly and hit each in his vital part,
tapping an invitation on Tommy's brain-pan and taking Shovel
coquettishly in the stomach. Now was the moment when Shovel meant to
strip Tommy of the ticket, but the spectacle in front dazed him, and he
stopped to tell a vegetable barrow how he loved his dear father and his
dear mother, and all the dear kids at home. Then Tommy darted forward
and was immediately lost in the crowd surging round the steps of the
hall.

Several gentlemen in evening dress stood framed in the lighted doorway,
shouting: "Have your tickets in your hands and give them up as you pass
in." They were fine fellows, helping in a splendid work, and their
society did much good, though it was not so well organized as others
that have followed in its steps; but Shovel, you may believe, was in no
mood to attend to them. He had but one thought: that the traitor Tommy
was doubtless at that moment boring his way toward them, underground,
as it were, and "holding his ticket in his hand." Shovel dived into the
rabble and was flung back upside down. Falling with his arms round a
full-grown man, he immediately ran up him as if he had been a lamp-post,
and was aloft just sufficiently long to see Tommy give up the ticket and
saunter into the hall.

The crowd tried at intervals to rush the door. It was mainly composed of
ragged boys, but here and there were men, women, and girls, who came
into view for a moment under the lights as the mob heaved and went round
and round like a boiling potful. Two policemen joined the
ticket-collectors, and though it was a good-humored gathering, the air
was thick with such cries as these:

"I lorst my ticket, ain't I telling yer? Gar on, guv'nor, lemme in!"

"Oh, crumpets, look at Jimmy! Jimmy never done nothink, your honor;
he's a himposter"'

"I'm the boy