She seemed of a mind to trip off to this woman, and as long as his own mother was safe, it did not greatly matter to Tommy whom she chose, but if it was this one, she was going the wrong way about it.  You cannot snap them up in the street.

The proper course was to track her to her house, which he proceeded to do, and his quarry, who was looking about her anxiously, as if she had lost something, gave him but a short chase.  In the next street to the one in which they had first seen her, a street so like it that Tommy might have admired her for knowing the difference, she opened the door with a key and entered, shutting the door behind her.  Odd to tell, the child had pointed to this door as the one she would stop at, which surprised Tommy very much.

On the steps he gave her his final instructions, and she dimpled and gurgled, obviously full of admiration for him, which was a thing he approved of, but he would have liked to see her a little more serious.

“That is the door.  Well, then, I’ll waggle the rail as makes the bell ring, and then I’ll run.”

That was all, and he wished she had not giggled most of the time.  She was sniggering, as if she thought him a very funny boy, even when he rang the bell and bolted.

From a safe place he watched the opening of the door, and saw the frivolous thing lose a valuable second in waving the muff to him.  “In you go!” he screamed beneath his breath.  Then she entered and the door closed.  He waited an hour, or two minutes, or thereabout, and she had not been ejected.  Triumph!

With a drum beating inside him Tommy strutted home, where, alas, a boy was waiting to put his foot through it.

CHAPTER II

BUT THE OTHER GETS IN

To Tommy, a swaggerer, came Shovel sour-visaged; having now no cap of his own, he exchanged with Tommy, would also have bled the blooming mouth of him, but knew of a revenge that saves the knuckles:  announced, with jeers and offensive finger exercise, that “it” had come.

Shovel was a liar.  If he only knowed what Tommy knowed!

If Tommy only heard what Shovel had heard!

Tommy was of opinion that Shovel hadn’t not heard anything.

Shovel believed as Tommy didn’t know nuthin.

Tommy wouldn’t listen to what Shovel had heard.

Neither would Shovel listen to what Tommy knew.

If Shovel would tell what he had heard, Tommy would tell what he knew.

Well, then, Shovel had listened at the door, and heard it mewling.

Tommy knowed it well, and it never mewled.

How could Tommy know it?

’Cos he had been with it a long time.

Gosh!  Why, it had only comed a minute ago.

This made Tommy uneasy, and he asked a leading question cunningly.  A boy, wasn’t it?

No, Shovel’s old woman had been up helping to hold it, and she said it were a girl.