His mother was at last re-engaged by her old employers, her supplanter
having proved unsatisfactory, and as the work lay in a distant street,
she usually took the kid with her, thus leaving no one to spy on Tammy's
movements. Reddy's reward for not playing him false, however, did not
reach her as soon as doubtless she would have liked, because the first
two or three times he saw her she was walking with the lady of his
choice, and of course he was not such a fool as to show himself. But he
walked behind them and noted with satisfaction that the lady seemed to
be reconciled to her lot and inclined to let bygones be bygones; when
at length Reddy and her patron met, Tommy thought this a good sign too,
that Ma-ma (as she would call the lady) had told her not to go farther
away than the lamp-post, lest she should get lost again. So evidently
she had got lost once already, and the lady had been sorry. He asked
Reddy many shrewd questions about how Ma-ma treated her, and if she got
the top of the Sunday egg and had the licking of the pan and wore
flannel underneath and slept at the back; and the more he inquired, the
more clearly he saw that he had got her one of the right kind.

Tommy arranged with her that she should always be on the outlook for him
at the window, and he would come sometimes, and after that they met
frequently, and she proved a credit to him, gurgling with mirth at his
tales of Thrums, and pinching him when he had finished, to make sure
that he was really made just like common human beings. He was a thin,
pale boy, while she looked like a baby rose full blown in a night
because her time was short; and his movements were sluggish, but if she
was not walking she must be dancing, and sometimes when there were few
people in the street, the little armful of delight that she was jumped
up and down like a ball, while Tommy kept the time, singing "Thrummy,
Thrummy, Thrum Thrum Thrummy." They must have seemed a quaint pair to
the lady as she sat at her window watching them and beckoning to Tommy