CHAPTER V.
THE ANGEL RESCUES MR. TOMLIN.
It was on the afternoon that Mary carried back her week's completed work that Norma, receiving an unexpected summons to the Opera House, was obliged, though with many misgivings, to leave the Angel in the charge of Joey. "But what else could I do," she reasoned afterward, "with Mrs. O'Malligan out and Mrs. Tomlin sick, and nobody else willing, it appeared, to see to her?"
True, she had cautioned Joey, over and over again about keeping the child away from the window, and about staying right in the room until her return; but, notwithstanding, Norma could hardly have gotten to the corner before Joey, promptly forgetting his promise, and finding the room a dull playground, was enticing his charge into the hall and straightway down the stairs.
At the bottom of the second flight, the two children came upon Mr. Tomlin entertaining two gentlemen callers. Only the week before, the Tenement had been called upon to mourn with the Tomlins, whose baby had been carried away in a little coffin after the fashion of tenement babies when the thermometer climbs up the scale near to one hundred. And since then, Mrs. Tomlin, refusing to be comforted, had taken to her bed, thus making it necessary for her husband to receive his company in the hall.
The callers, who, together with their host, were sitting on the steps, moved aside to allow the children to pass. The larger of the gentlemen was unpleasantly dirty, with a ragged beard and a shock of red hair. The other was a little man with quick black eyes and a pleasant smile. Passing these by, the Angel paused on the step above Mr. Tomlin and slipped her arms around his neck.
"Pick a back, my Tomlin," she sweetly commanded in the especially imperious tones she reserved for Mr. Tomlin's sex, "get up, horsey."
The good-natured giant, for such her Tomlin was, shouldered her as one would some precious burden liable to break, grinned, stood up and obediently trotted the length of the hall and back.
Joey, meanwhile, legs apart, stood eyeing the visitors attentively. "Keep up that kind of talk," the dirty gentleman was urging, "and we've got him. He's worth any three of ordinary strength, and he's a favorite with the men, too."
Here the horse and his rider returned. "What a got in a pocket for Angel?" the young autocrat proceeded to demand when lifted down. Of all her masculine subjects in the Tenement, Mr. Tomlin was her veriest slave.