"She would see yer."

"Oh, Tommy, let me. God is angry with me."

Tommy looked down the stair, and no one was in sight. "I'll let yer pray
here," he whispered, "and you can say I have twopence. But be quick, and
do it standing."

Perhaps Mrs. Sandys had been thinking that when Hogmanay came her
children might have no mother to bring presents to, for on their return
to the room her eyes followed them woefully, and a shudder of
apprehension shook her torn frame. Tommy gave Elspeth a look that meant
"I'm sure there's something queer about her."

There was also something queer about himself, which at this time had the
strangest gallop. It began one day with a series of morning calls from
Shovel, who suddenly popped his head over the top of the door (he was
standing on the handle), roared "Roastbeef!" in the manner of a railway
porter announcing the name of a station, and then at once withdrew.

He returned presently to say that vain must be all attempts to wheedle
his secret from him, and yet again to ask irritably why Tommy was not
coming out to hear all about it. Then did Tommy desert Elspeth, and on
the stair Shovel showed him a yellow card with this printed on it:
"S.R.J.C.--Supper Ticket;" and written beneath, in a lady's hand: "Admit
Joseph Salt." The letters, Shovel explained, meant Society for the
somethink of Juvenile Criminals, and the toffs what ran it got hold of
you when you came out of quod. Then if you was willing to repent they
wrote down your name and the place what you lived at in a book, and one
of them came to see yer and give yer a ticket for the blow-out night.