"can't I stay just a little longer?"

"You must come at once," his mother commanded.

"Is that your mumsey," Johan asked.

"It is my mamma," Keith retorted, his attention momentarily diverted by
Johan's most peculiar way of referring to his parents.

"Then you had better go," advised the new friend sagely, "or she will
tell your popsey, and then you know what happens to you."

"I think I can come down again, if you wait for me," cried Keith as he
ran into the long dark passageway.

At that moment a cry of "Johan" rose from the lower part of the lane,
and Keith had to come back once more to look.

"There's my mumsey now," said Johan philosophically, pointing to an open
window on the ground floor of the corner house. With that he slouched
off in a manner that Keith half envied and half resented.



XXIII

The sudden emergence of Johan had filled Keith's heart with a new hope.
Here was a possible playmate at last. The fact that his father was a
_vaktmästare_ like Keith's ought to settle all paternal opposition, the
boy thought. But to his great surprise, he found this not to be