A dangerous friend

by Emma Leslie

But it was clear the pocket-handkerchief and all it contained was beyond his reach now, and it was of no use waiting to look for it here.

"You can take the card and pay me for it when you go past in the morning," said the shopkeeper as Tom was leaving.

Tom hesitated, but at last, thinking that he should have his week's threepence the next day, and that his mother would expect him to send her some remembrance of Christmas, he decided to take the card, saying as he did so, "I may not be able to pay you until to-morrow evening, but I suppose that will do?"

"Oh yes, that will do, you're riot a stranger about here, I know, for I often see you pass in the morning. I hope you will find your money at home," he added, as Tom took up the little paper parcel and went out of the shop.

"I hope I shall," said Tom from the doorway, and just then a policeman came from the window, where he had evidently been looking in, and turned his attention to Tom as he sauntered past.

"I hope he'll know me next time," muttered Tom, with an uncomfortable feeling, as he thought of the shilling his uncle had got secure in his purse.

He wondered as he went along how much more annoyance he was to have through this money. Certainly, he had got nothing but misery out of it at present, it was time his "luck" changed in this respect, he thought.

As soon as he got home, he went to his own room, and looked round, as we are all apt to do when we have missed anything that yet seems impossible we can have lost entirely. Tom knew he had taken his money out at dinner time, and counted it, and yet he searched round the room at home, as though he expected to find it there.

This rushing off upstairs before he had thoroughly cleaned his boots on the doormat vexed his aunt, who prided herself on the spotless condition of her stair covers, which had just been laid down for Christmas.

"Tom, Tom," she called, "what business have you to go upstairs until after tea? I have just put down clean drugget, and it will not be fit to be seen in a week, if you run up and down stairs as you like."