Sentimental Tommy | Page 5

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.
Shutting his mouth tightly; which was never natural to him, the startled
Tommy mounted the stair, listened and was convinced. He did not
enter his dishonored home. He had no intention of ever entering it
again. With one salt tear he renounced--a child, a mother.
On his way downstairs he was received by Shovel and party, who
planted their arrows neatly. Kids cried steadily, he was told, for the first
year. A boy one was bad enough, but a girl one was oh lawks. He must
never again expect to get playing with blokes like what they was.
Already she had got round his old gal who would care for him no more.
What would they say about this in Thrums?
Shovel even insisted on returning him his cap, and for some queer
reason, this cut deepest. Tommy about to charge, with his head down,

now walked away so quietly that Shovel, who could not help liking the
funny little cuss, felt a twinge of remorse, and nearly followed him with
a magnanimous offer: to treat him as if he were still respectable.
Tommy lay down on a distant stair, one of the very stairs where she
had sat with him. Ladies, don't you dare to pity him now, for he won't
stand it. Rage was what he felt, and a man in a rage (as you may know
if you are married) is only to be soothed by the sight of all womankind
in terror of him. But you may look upon your handiwork, and gloat, an
you will, on the wreck you have made. A young gentleman trusted one
of you; behold the result. O! O! O! O! now do you understand why we
men cannot abide you?
If she had told him flat that his mother, and his alone, she would have,
and so there was an end of it. Ah, catch them taking a straight road. But
to put on those airs of helplessness, to wave him that gay good-by, and
then the moment his back was turned, to be off through the air
on--perhaps on her muff, to the home he had thought to lure her