"Stories!" he exclaimed, "I'll--I'll tell you about Thrums," and was
about to do it for love, but stopped in time. "This ain't a good stair
for stories," he said, cunningly. "I can't not tell stories on this
stair, but I--I know a good stair for stories."

The ninny of a girl was completely hoodwinked; and see, there they go,
each with a hand in the muff, the one leering, oh, so triumphantly; the
other trusting and gleeful. There was an exuberance of vitality about
her as if she lived too quickly in her gladness, which you may remember
in some child who visited the earth for but a little while.

How superbly Tommy had done it! It had been another keen brain pitted
against his, and at first he was not winning. Then up came Thrums,
and--But the thing has happened before; in a word, Blücher. Nevertheless,
Tommy just managed it, for he got the girl out of the street and on to
another stair no more than in time to escape a ragged rabble, headed by
Shovel, who, finding their quarry gone, turned on their leader
viciously, and had gloomy views of life till his cap was kicked down a
sewer, which made the world bright again.

Of the tales told by Tommy that day in words Scotch and cockney, of
Thrums, home of heroes and the arts, where the lamps are lit by a
magician called Leerie-leerie-licht-the-lamps (but he is also friendly,
and you can fling stones at him), and the merest children are allowed
to set the spinning-wheels a-whirling, and dagont is the swear, and the
stairs are so fine that the houses wear them outside for show, and you
drop a pail at the end of a rope down a hole, and sometimes it comes up
full of water, and sometimes full of fairies--of these and other
wonders, if you would know, ask not a dull historian, nor even go to