"I mean the fat little Thomas who danced so hard."

"Oh! that's the little Thomas," said Hyacinth.

"Where does he live?" I asked.

"Oh, quite close; when we go to tea there we walk. He hasn't got
a mother, so there's no drawing-room. She died," added Hyacinth,
as if it was an every-day occurrence that Thomas should be left
without a mother, instead of its being a heart-breaking tragedy.
A child with no mother, no mother to unwrap the pink bundle, no
mother to grieve for the screw, no mother to understand things.
Perhaps his mother had been a Diana sort of mother.

"Oh, Thomas," I thought, "I must send you back your screw." I
didn't care what any one said -- he should have it.

If he had had a mother, it wouldn't have mattered, because she
would have known it was a screw he had lost, and she would have
known just what comfort he would have needed; whereas a Fraulein
would know nothing about a screw, beyond the German for it, and
the gender, of course. And of what use is that to a child? It
may sound very unconventional, and I suppose it was so, to go to a
strange house and ask for Thomas, and my only excuse a small
screw. But still I went!

I pictured a lonely child in a large house with a Fraulein and a
nurse, perhaps two; those I could face. A tall, sad father I had
never thought of! I am afraid I am not suited for the profession,