CHAPTER VIII — THE BOY WITH TWO MOTHERS
"I love my dear father and my dear mother and all the dear little kids at 'ome. You are a kind laidy or gentleman. I love yer. I will never do it again, so help me bob. Amen."
This was what Shovel muttered to himself again and again as the two boys made their way across the lamp-lit Hungerford Bridge, and Tommy asked him what it meant.
"My old gal learned me that; she's deep," Shovel said, wiping the words off his mouth with his sleeve.
"But you got no kids at 'ome!" remonstrated Tommy. (Ameliar was now in service.)
Shovel turned on him with the fury of a mother protecting her young. "Don't you try for to knock none on it out," he cried, and again fell a-mumbling.
Said Tommy, scornfully: "If you says it all out at one bang you'll be done at the start."
Shovel sighed.