This stair was nursery to all the children whose homes opened on it, not so safe as nurseries in the part of London that is chiefly inhabited by boys in sailor suits, but preferable as a centre of adventure, and here on an afternoon sat two.  They were very busy boasting, but only the smaller had imagination, and as he used it recklessly, their positions soon changed; sexless garments was now prone on a step, breeches sitting on him.

Shovel, a man of seven, had said, “None on your lip.  You weren’t never at Thrums yourself.”

Tommy’s reply was, “Ain’t my mother a Thrums 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.