His mother pooh-poohed his tale, though he described the street exactly
as it struck him on reflection, and it bore a curious resemblance to the
palace of Aladdin that Reddy had told him about, leaving his imagination
to fill in the details, which it promptly did, with a square, a
town-house, some outside stairs, and an auld licht kirk. There was no
such street, however, his mother assured him; he had been dreaming. But
if this were so, why was she so anxious to make him promise never to
look for the place again?

He did go in search of it again, daily for a time, always keeping a
look-out for bow-legs, and the moment he saw them, he dived recklessly
between, hoping to come out into fairyland on the other side. For though
he had lost the street, he knew that this was the way in.

Shovel had never heard of the street, nor had Bob. But Bob gave him
something that almost made him forget it for a time. Bob was his
favorite among the dancing girls, and she--or should it be he? The odd
thing about these girls was that a number of them were really boys--or
at least were boys at Christmas-time, which seemed to Tommy to be even
stranger than if they had been boys all the year round. A friend of
Bob's remarked to her one day, "You are to be a girl next winter, ain't
you, Bob?" and Bob shook her head scornfully.

"Do you see any green in my eye, my dear?" she inquired.

Her friend did not look, but Tommy looked, and there was none. He
assured her of this so earnestly that Bob fell in love with him on the
spot, and chucked him under the chin, first with her thumb and then with
her toe, which feat was duly reported to Shovel, who could do it by the
end of the week.