It was a revelation to the lad when Tom went on to speak of it as business, where everyone was bound to consider themselves first.
"Well, if friends ain't to be friends in this, I'd like to know what the good of it is, and if that's the way racing is to be looked at, I'll take good care I never have any more to do with it."
Poor Bob went home almost heart-broken over the loss of his mother's shawl, for so sure had he felt that he should win what he had risked, and a considerable sum besides, that he had arranged with her to go with him to buy it early the following week; and it would be hard to tell which had looked forward to it with the greatest pleasure, Bob or his mother.
Now for him to go home and have to tell her that the thin old shawl would have to be worn through another winter was bitter indeed to the lad, for he had begun to think he might be able to add a bonnet to the shawl, and then they might both go to church on Sunday. If anyone had told them that this bitter disappointment was the greatest blessing that could be bestowed upon Bob just now, they would scarcely have believed it, for the widow had already told some of her neighbours what her son Bob was going to buy for her Christmas present, and now to hear that he had no money left was a sad blow to her.
His mother was ironing when Bob went home, for she was a widow and maintained herself by laundry-work. She turned to him with a smile of greeting as he came in, but the boy's white face made her put down her iron and she asked him, in some consternation, what had happened.
"Have you lost your place?" she asked, for nothing short of this she thought could account for Bob's downcast looks.
"Worse than that, mother," said Bob, with a half suppressed sob; "I've lost your shawl."
"Lost my shawl! Bless the boy, it ain't bought yet," replied Mrs. Ronan, with a puzzled look on her face.
"No, mother, I've lost the money, though, that was to buy it."
"But I thought you told me last week that it was your overtime money, and that you'd put it in the Post Office to take care of. Surely that ain't gone and bust up like the banks do sometimes?"