It was on a Wednesday that Susy sat in the parlor and forgot all about the interests of the shop; it was on that very night that the tramp had come in and helped himself to a ten-shilling-piece and some silver out of the till; and it was on the following Saturday that Mrs. Hopkins, for the first time since she had borrowed the hundred pounds from Aunt Church, as she called the old lady, found that she could not return even a portion of what had just fallen due.  She called Tom to her side.

“Tom,” she said, “you must go and see Aunt Church this afternoon as soon as ever you come in.  You must go, and you must tell her.”

“Of course I’ll go, mother,” answered the boy.  “I always like going to Aunt Church’s; she is very kind to me.  She said next time I came along she’d show me things in her microscope.  She has got a beetle’s wing, mother, mounted on glass, and when you gaze down at it it seems to be covered with beautiful feathers, as long as though they were on a big bird.  And she has got a drop of water full of wriggly things all alive; and she says we drink it by the gallon, and it is no wonder we feel bad in our insides.  I’ll go, right enough.  I suppose you have the money ready?”

“No, Tom, that’s just what I have not got.  I told you how that night when I had the misfortune to go and see your aunt and look after her sick child, some one came into the shop and stole nineteen-and-sixpence out of the till.  I am so short from the loss of that money that I can’t pay Aunt Church for at least another week.  Ask her if she’ll be kind enough to give me a week’s grace, Tom; that’s a good boy.  I can’t think how the money was stolen.”

“Why don’t you put it into the hands of the police?” said Tom.

“Why, Tom,” said his mother, looking at him with admiration, “you are a smart boy.  Do you know, I never thought of that.  I will go round to the police-station this very afternoon and get Police-Constable Macartney to take it up.”

“But, mother, the thief, whoever he is, has left the place long before now.  The money was stolen on Wednesday, and this is Saturday morning.”

“Well, Tom, there’s no saying.  Anyhow, I will go round to the police-station and lodge the information.”

Accordingly, while Susy was again trying on her lovely pale-blue cashmere blouse behind locked doors upstairs, Tom and his mother were plotting how best to cover the loss of the nineteen-and-sixpence.  Naughty Susy, having made up her mind to deny herself a new frock and new boots, had given the matter no further consideration.  She was accustomed to the fact that her mother was always in money difficulties.  As long as she could remember, this was the state of things at home.  She had come to the conclusion that grown-up persons were always in a frantic state about money, and she had no desire to join these anxious ones herself.  As she could not mend matters, she did not see why she should worry about them.