The magic began at once.  “Dagont, you sacket!” cried some wizard.

A policeman’s hand on his shoulder could not have taken the wind out of Tommy more quickly.  In the act of starting a-running again he brought down his hind foot with a thud and stood stock still.  Can any one wonder?  It was the Thrums tongue, and this the first time he had heard it except from his mother.

It was a dull day, and all the walls were dripping wet, this being the part of London where the fogs are kept.  Many men and women were passing to and fro, and Tommy, with a wild exultation in his breast, peered up at the face of this one and that; but no, they were only ordinary people, and he played rub-a-dub with his feet on the pavement, so furious was he with them for moving on as if nothing had happened.  Draw up, ye carters; pedestrians, stand still; London, silence for a moment, and let Tommy Sandys listen!

Being but a frail plant in the way of a flood, Tommy was rooted up and borne onward, but he did not feel the buffeting.  In a passion of grief he dug his fists in his eyes, for the glory had been his for but a moment.  It can be compared to nothing save the parcel (attached to a concealed string) which Shovel and he once placed on the stair for Billy Hankey to find, and then whipped away from him just as he had got it under his arm.  But so near the crying, Tommy did not cry, for even while the tears were rushing to his aid he tripped on the step of a shop, and immediately, as if that had rung the magic bell again, a voice, a woman’s voice this time, said shrilly, “Threepence ha’penny, and them jimply as big as a bantam’s!  Na, na, but I’ll gi’e you five bawbees.”

Tommy sat down flop on the step, feeling queer in the head.  Was it—­was it—­was it Thrums?  He knew he had been running a long time.

The woman, or fairy, or whatever you choose to call her, came out of the shop and had to push Tommy aside to get past.  Oh, what a sweet foot to be kicked by.  At the time, he thought she was dressed not unlike the women of his own stair, but this defect in his vision he mended afterward, as you may hear.  Of course, he rose and trotted by her side like a dog, looking up at her as if she were a cathedral; but she mistook his awe for impudence and sent him sprawling, with the words, “Tak that, you glowering partan!”

Do you think Tommy resented this?  On the contrary he screamed from where he lay, “Say it again! say it again!”

She was gone, however, but only, as it were, to let a window open, from which came the cry, “Davit, have you seen my man?”

A male fairy roared back from some invisible place, “He has gone yont to Petey’s wi’ the dambrod.”

“I’ll dambrod him!” said the female fairy, and the window shut.

Tommy was now staggering like one intoxicated, but he had still some sense left him, and he walked up and down in front of this house, as if to take care of it.  In the middle of the street some boys were very busy at a game, carts and lorries passing over them occasionally.  They came to the pavement to play marbles, and then Tommy noticed that one of them wore what was probably a glengarry bonnet.  Could he be a Thrums boy?