[CHAPTER V.]
APPLES OF SODOM.
TOM went home the evening of the race, feeling wonderfully elated, hugging to himself the knowledge of his good fortune, but not daring to let his aunt know anything of it. He had to sit and eat his bread and butter at tea time as though nothing had happened, which in itself was almost a pain just now. For he was bursting to tell the news to somebody.
If he could only have done this, he might have been able to eat as usual, but, as it was, every mouthful seemed as though it would choke him. And at last his aunt noticed the pile of bread and butter still on the plate, and said, "What is the matter with you this evening? You don't get on with your tea."
"I am not very hungry," said Tom in a tone of indifference, but with a smile playing about his lips that did not escape his aunt's notice.
"What's taken your appetite away?" she asked rather sharply.
"I don't know," said Tom, rising from the table now, for he did not like his aunt's scrutiny.
He had not learned to tell a lie unblushingly yet; and Mrs. Flowers, as she watched him go out of the room, nodded her head sagaciously:
"There is something a-foot I know," she said half aloud, as Tom closed the door, and she resolved to watch him more closely for the next few days.
Of course, Tom was all impatience to go and meet his friend Jack, and he made sure he should find him waiting at the corner of the street for him, for surely Jack would be as eager to talk the good news over as he was.