THE BOY WITH TWO MOTHERS


"I love my dear father and my dear mother and all the dear little kids
at 'ome. You are a kind laidy or gentleman. I love yer. I will never do
it again, so help me bob. Amen."

This was what Shovel muttered to himself again and again as the two boys
made their way across the lamp-lit Hungerford Bridge, and Tommy asked
him what it meant.

"My old gal learned me that; she's deep," Shovel said, wiping the words
off his mouth with his sleeve.

"But you got no kids at 'ome!" remonstrated Tommy. (Ameliar was now in
service.)

Shovel turned on him with the fury of a mother protecting her young.
"Don't you try for to knock none on it out," he cried, and again fell
a-mumbling.

Said Tommy, scornfully: "If you says it all out at one bang you'll be
done at the start."

Shovel sighed.

"And you should blubber when yer says it," added Tommy, who could laugh
or cry merely because other people were laughing or crying, or even with
less reason, and so naturally that he found it more difficult to stop
than to begin. Shovel was the taller by half a head, and irresistible