“How then?” demanded Tommy; but Shovel had exhausted his knowledge of the subject.  Tommy, who had begun to descend to hold the door, turned and climbed upwards, and his tears were now but the drop left in a cup too hurriedly dried.  Where was he off to?  Shovel called after him; and he answered, in a determined whisper:  “To shove of it out if it tries to come in at the winder.”

This was enough for the more knowing urchin, now so full of good things that with another added he must spill, and away he ran for an audience, which could also help him to bait Tommy, that being a game most sportive when there are several to fling at once.  At the door he knocked over, and was done with, a laughing little girl who had strayed from a more fashionable street.  She rose solemnly, and kissing her muff, to reassure it if it had got a fright, toddled in at the first open door to be out of the way of unmannerly boys.

Tommy, climbing courageously, heard the door slam, and looking down he saw—­a strange child.  He climbed no higher.  It had come.

After a long time he was one flight of stairs nearer it.  It was making itself at home on the bottom step; resting, doubtless, before it came hopping up.  Another dozen steps, and—­It was beautifully dressed in one piece of yellow and brown that reached almost to its feet, with a bit left at the top to form a hood, out of which its pert face peeped impudently; oho, so they came in their Sunday clothes.  He drew so near that he could hear it cooing:  thought itself as good as upstairs, did it!

He bounced upon her sharply, thinking to carry all with a high hand.  “Out you go!” he cried, with the action of one heaving coals.

She whisked round, and, “Oo boy or oo girl?” she inquired, puzzled by his dress.

“None of your cheek!” roared insulted manhood.

“Oo boy,” she said, decisively.

With the effrontery of them when they are young, she made room for him on her step, but he declined the invitation, knowing that her design was to skip up the stair the moment he was off his guard.

“You don’t needn’t think as we’ll have you,” he announced, firmly.  “You had best go away to—­go to—­” His imagination failed him.  “You had best go back,” he said.

She did not budge, however, and his next attempt was craftier.  “My mother,” he assured her, “ain’t living here now;” but mother was a new word to the girl, and she asked gleefully, “Oo have mother?” expecting him to produce it from his pocket.  To coax him to give her a sight of it she said, plaintively, “Me no have mother.”

“You won’t not get mine,” replied Tommy doggedly.

She pretended not to understand what was troubling him, and it passed through his head that she had to wait there till the doctor came down for her.  He might come at any moment.