down the Strand the 'bus stopped and she left us.

The woman with an incurable complaint touched me on the knee.

"Speak to him," she whispered.

But the whisper did not reach, for I was two hundred miles away, and
occupied in starting off to school for the first time. I had two
shillings in my pocket; and at the first town where the coach baited
I was to exchange these for a coco-nut and a clasp-knife. Also, I
was to break the knife in opening the nut, and the nut, when opened,
would be sour. A sense of coming evil, therefore, possessed me.

"Why don't you speak to him?"

The boy glanced up, not catching her words, but suspicious: then
frowned and looked defiant.

"Ah," she went on in the same whisper, "it's only the young that I
pity. Sometimes, sir--for my illness keeps me much awake--I lie at
night in my lodgings and listen, and the whole of London seems filled
with the sound of children's feet running. Even by day I can hear
them, at the back of the uproar--"

The matrimonial agent grunted and rose, as we halted at the top of
Essex Street. I saw him slip a couple of half-crowns into the
conductor's hand: and he whispered something, jerking his head back
towards the interior of the 'bus. The boy was brushing his eyes,
under pretence of putting his cap forward; and by the time he stole a
look around to see if anyone had observed, we had started again.