"That is Johan," Keith shouted back triumphantly, "and his papa is a vaktmästare, too."
"Come right up and let me speak to you," was the insistant rejoinder from above.
"Oh, please, mamma," the boy pleaded, his voice breaking a little, "can't I stay just a little longer?"
"You must come at once," his mother commanded.
"Is that your mumsey," Johan asked.
"It is my mamma," Keith retorted, his attention momentarily diverted by Johan's most peculiar way of referring to his parents.
"Then you had better go," advised the new friend sagely, "or she will tell your popsey, and then you know what happens to you."
"I think I can come down again, if you wait for me," cried Keith as he ran into the long dark passageway.
At that moment a cry of "Johan" rose from the lower part of the lane, and Keith had to come back once more to look.
"There's my mumsey now," said Johan philosophically, pointing to an open window on the ground floor of the corner house. With that he slouched off in a manner that Keith half envied and half resented.