"Did yer go home?"

"Ay," said Paul.

"Into the house?"

Paul nodded and smiled. Now, that it was all over, he could smile.
But only afterwards, when he had greater command of language, could
he describe the awful terror that shook his soul when he opened the
front door, crept twice through the darkness of the sleeping kitchen
and noiselessly closed the door again.

For many months he felt the terror of his dreams. Briefly he told
Barney Bill of his exploit. How he had to lurk in the shadow of the
street during the end of a battle between the Buttons, in which the
lodgers and a policeman had intervened. How he had to wait--
interminable hours--until the house was quiet. How he had stumbled
over things in the drunken disorder of the kitchen floor, dreading
to arouse the four elder little Buttons who slept in the room. How
narrowly he had missed running into the arms of the policeman who
had passed the door some seconds before he opened it. How he had
crouched on the pavement until the policeman turned the corner, and
how he had fled in the opposite direction.

"And if yer mother had caught ye, what would she have done to yer?"

"Half-killed me," said Paul.

Barney Bill twisted his head on one side and looked at him out of