my dear--"

"Gach!" said Tommy, interrupting him contemptuously. "Repenting ain't no
go, Shovel. Look at them other coves; none of them has got no money, nor
full pockets, and I tell you, it's 'cos they has repented."

"Gar on!"

"It's true, I tells you. That lady as is my one, she's called her
ladyship, and she don't care a cuss for boys as has repented," which of
course was a libel, her ladyship being celebrated wherever paragraphs
penetrate for having knitted a pair of stockings for the deserving poor.

"When I saw that," Tommy continued, brazenly, "I bragged 'stead of
repenting, and the wuss I says I am, she jest says, 'You little
monster,' and gives me another orange."

"Then I'm done for," Shovel moaned, "for I rolled off that 'bout loving
my dear father and my dear mother, blast 'em, soon as I seen her."

He need not let that depress him. Tommy had told her he would say it,
but that it was all flam.

Shovel thought the ideal arrangement would be for him to eat and leave
the torking to Tommy. Tommy nodded. "I'm full, at any rate," he said,
struggling with his waistcoat. "Oh, Shovel, I _am_ full!"

Her ladyship returned, and the boys held by their contract, but of the
dark character Tommy seems to have been, let not these pages bear the
record. Do you wonder that her ladyship believed him? On this point we