At first he played in the stupid London way, but by and by he had to make a new ring, and he did it by whirling round on one foot.  Tommy knew from his mother that it is only done in this way in Thrums.  Oho!  Oho!

By this time he was prancing round his discovery, saying, “I’m one, too—­so am I—­dagont, does yer hear? dagont!” which so alarmed the boy that he picked up his marble and fled, Tommy, of course, after him.  Alas! he must have been some mischievous sprite, for he lured his pursuer back into London and then vanished, and Tommy, searching in vain for the enchanted street, found his own door instead.

His mother pooh-poohed his tale, though he described the street exactly as it struck him on reflection, and it bore a curious resemblance to the palace of Aladdin that Reddy had told him about, leaving his imagination to fill in the details, which it promptly did, with a square, a town-house, some outside stairs, and an auld licht kirk.  There was no such street, however, his mother assured him; he had been dreaming.  But if this were so, why was she so anxious to make him promise never to look for the place again?

He did go in search of it again, daily for a time, always keeping a look-out for bow-legs, and the moment he saw them, he dived recklessly between, hoping to come out into fairyland on the other side.  For though he had lost the street, he knew that this was the way in.

Shovel had never heard of the street, nor had Bob.  But Bob gave him something that almost made him forget it for a time.  Bob was his favorite among the dancing girls, and she—­or should it be he?  The odd thing about these girls was that a number of them were really boys—­or at least were boys at Christmas-time, which seemed to Tommy to be even stranger than if they had been boys all the year round.  A friend of Bob’s remarked to her one day, “You are to be a girl next winter, ain’t you, Bob?” and Bob shook her head scornfully.

“Do you see any green in my eye, my dear?” she inquired.

Her friend did not look, but Tommy looked, and there was none.  He assured her of this so earnestly that Bob fell in love with him on the spot, and chucked him under the chin, first with her thumb and then with her toe, which feat was duly reported to Shovel, who could do it by the end of the week.

Did Tommy, Bob wanted to know, still think her a mere woman?

No, he withdrew the charge, but—­but—­She was wearing her outdoor garments, and he pointed to them, “Why does yer wear them, then?” he demanded.

“For the matter of that,” she replied, pointing at his frock, “why do you wear them?” Whereupon Tommy began to cry.

“I ain’t not got no right ones,” he blubbered.  Harum-scarum Bob, who was a trump, had him in her motherly arms immediately, and the upshot of it was that a blue suit she had worn when she was Sam Something changed owners.  Mrs. Sandys “made it up,” and that is how Tommy got into trousers.