The great thought in his mind was that he must replace the mug.  He had not been very often in the streets beyond the Square, but upon certain occasions he had seen their glories, and he knew that there had been shops and shops and shops.  Quite close to him, upon a shelf, was his money-box, a squat, ugly affair of red tin, into whose large mouth he had been compelled to force those gifts that kind relations had bestowed.  There must be now quite a fortune there—­enough to buy many mugs.  He could not himself open it, but he did not doubt that the man in the shop would do that for him.

Not for many more moments would he be left alone.  His hat was lying on the table; he seized that and his money-box, and was out on the landing.

The rest is his story.  I cannot, as I have already said, vouch for the truth of it.  At first, fortune was on his side.  There seemed to be no one about the house.  He went down the wide staircase without making any sound; in the hall he stopped for a moment because he heard voices, but no one came.  Then with both hands, and standing on tiptoe, he turned the lock of the door, and was outside.

The Square was bathed in golden sun, a sun, the stronger for his concealment, but tempered, too, with the fine gleam that the rain had left.  Never before had Bim been outside that door alone; he was aware that this was a very tremendous adventure.  The sky was a washed and delicate purple, and behold! on the high railings, a row of sparrows were chattering.  Voices were cold and clear, echoing, as it seemed, against the straight, grey walls of the houses, and all the trees in the garden glistened with their wet leaves shining with gold; there seemed to be, too, a dim veil of smoke that was homely and comfortable.

It is not usual to see a small boy of four alone in a London square, but Bim met, at first, no one except a messenger boy, who stopped and looked after him.  At the corner of the Square—­just out of the Square so that it might not shame its grandeur—­was a fruit and flower shop, and this shop was the entrance to a street that had much life and bustle about it.  Here Bim paused with his money-box clasped very tightly to him.  Then he made a step or two and was instantly engulfed, it seemed, in a perfect whirl of men and women, of carts and bicycles, of voices and cries and screams; there were lights of every colour, and especially one far above his head that came and disappeared and came again with terrifying wizardry.

He was, quite suddenly, and as it were, by the agency of some outside person, desperately frightened.  It was a new terror, different from anything that he had known before.  It was as though a huge giant had suddenly lifted him up by the seat of his breeches, or a witch had transplanted him on to her broomstick and carried him off.  It was as unusual as that.

His under lip began to quiver, and he knew that presently he would be crying.  Then, as he always did, when something unusual occurred to him, he thought of “Mr. Jack.”  At this point, when you ask him what happened, he always says:  “Oh!  He came, you know—­came walking along—­like he always did.”