"O' course he can't, Iggins, not with them," said the Foreman Shunter. "Can't stand on 'em, let alone walk on 'em. Here, catch holt o' the bawsket."
The Foreman Shunter took the boy in his arms and carried him away from the goods yard as he would have carried a baby.
"Leave the bawsket at No. 12 when you come off duty," he called back to the first subordinate.
"Right, Job, I will," said the first subordinate rather respectfully, and then as the Foreman Shunter passed out of hearing, the first subordinate said to his mate, "Fancy taking a thing like that 'ome to your missus."
In the meantime the boy was shivering and whimpering in what he felt to be the strong arms of the police.
"Let me go, mister, this once," he whined as awful recollections surged upon him. He had been getting terribly hurt all through the night, but he knew that he was going to be hurt still more now that the police had got hold of him.
But his faint whimpers and half-hearted wriggles were without effect upon the majesty of the law.
"Lie still. Keep quiet," growled the Foreman Shunter, adding as quite an impersonal afterthought, "Blast you!"
It seemed a very long time to the boy before he came to prison. Up one strange street and down another he was carried. As he lay in the arms of the police he could make out lamp after lamp and row after row of houses in the darkness.
It was a long way to the station.