Tommy and Co. | Page 5

suggest that I should engage you as my housekeeper?" asked
Mr. Peter Hope, now upright with his back to the fire.
"I'd do for you all right," persisted Tommy. "You give me my grub and

a shake-down and, say, sixpence a week, and I'll grumble less than
most of 'em."
"Don't be ridiculous," said Mr. Peter Hope.
"You won't try me?"
"Of course not; you must be mad."
"All right. No harm done." The dirty hand reached out towards the desk,
and possessing itself again of Hammond's Bill of Fare, commenced the
operations necessary for bearing it away in safety.
"Here's a shilling for you," said Mr. Peter Hope.
"Rather not," said Tommy. "Thanks all the same."
"Nonsense!" said Mr. Peter Hope.
"Rather not," repeated Tommy. "Never know where that sort of thing
may lead you to."
"All right," said Mr. Peter Hope, replacing the coin in his pocket.
"Don't!"
The figure moved towards the door.
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute," said Mr. Peter Hope irritably.
The figure, with its hand upon the door, stood still.
"Are you going back to Hammond's?"
"No. I've finished there. Only took me on for a couple o' weeks, while
one of the gals was ill. She came back this morning."
"Who are your people?"
Tommy seemed puzzled. "What d'ye mean?"

"Well, whom do you live with?"
"Nobody."
"You've got nobody to look after you--to take care of you?"
"Take care of me! D'ye think I'm a bloomin' kid?"
"Then where are you going to now?"
"Going? Out."
Peter Hope's irritation was growing.
"I mean, where are you going to sleep? Got any money for a lodging?"
"Yes, I've got some money," answered Tommy. "But I don't think
much o' lodgings. Not a particular nice class as you meet there. I shall
sleep out to-night. 'Tain't raining."
Elizabeth uttered a piercing cry.
"Serves you right!" growled Peter savagely. "How can anyone help
treading on you when you will get just between one's legs. Told you of
it a hundred times."
The truth of the matter was that Peter was becoming very angry with
himself. For no reason whatever, as he told himself, his memory would
persist in wandering to Ilford Cemetery, in a certain desolate corner of
which lay a fragile little woman whose lungs had been but ill adapted
to breathing London fogs; with, on the top of her, a still smaller and
still more fragile mite of humanity that, in compliment to its only
relative worth a penny-piece, had been christened Thomas--a name
common enough in all conscience, as Peter had reminded himself more
than once. In the name of common sense, what had dead and buried
Tommy Hope to do with this affair? The whole thing was the veriest
sentiment, and sentiment was Mr. Peter Hope's abomination. Had he
not penned articles innumerable pointing out its baneful influence upon
the age? Had he not always condemned it, wherever he had come

across it in play or book? Now and then the suspicion had crossed
Peter's mind that, in spite of all this, he was somewhat of a
sentimentalist himself--things had suggested this to him. The fear had
always made him savage.
"You wait here till I come back," he growled, seizing the astonished
Tommy by the worsted comforter and spinning it into the centre of the
room. "Sit down, and don't you dare to move." And Peter went out and
slammed the door behind him.
"Bit off his chump, ain't he?" remarked Tommy to Elizabeth, as the
sound of Peter's descending footsteps died away. People had a way of
addressing remarks to Elizabeth. Something in her manner invited this.
"Oh, well, it's all in the day's work," commented Tommy cheerfully,
and sat down as bid.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten. Then Peter returned, accompanied by
a large, restful lady, to whom surprise--one felt it instinctively--had
always been, and always would remain, an unknown quantity.
Tommy rose.
"That's the--the article," explained Peter.
Mrs. Postwhistle compressed her lips and slightly tossed her head. It
was the attitude of not ill-natured contempt from which she regarded
most human affairs.
"That's right," said Mrs. Postwhistle; "I remember seeing 'er
there--leastways, it was an 'er right enough then. What 'ave you done
with your clothes?"
"They weren't mine," explained Tommy. "They were things what Mrs.
Hammond had lent me."
"Is that your own?" asked Mrs. Postwhistle, indicating the blue silk
garibaldi.

"Yes."
"What went with it?"
"Tights. They were too far gone."
"What made you give up the tumbling business and go to Mrs.
'Ammond's?"
"It gave me up. Hurt myself."
"Who were you with last?"
"Martini troupe."
"And before that?"
"Oh! heaps of 'em."
"Nobody ever told you whether you was a boy or a girl?"
"Nobody as I'd care to believe. Some of them called me the