“All right,” he said, “don’t screech. We’ll go pals. ’Spose as we runs away.”
“I ’ates that book-shop,” said Bob.
“And I’m run to death by the Boy Messenger Company,” said Tom in a gloomy voice. “’Spose we goes to sea, Bob.”
“’Spose we does,” said Bob, with a little yelp. ”‘A life on the rolling wave’—oh, my stars, won’t it be fine?”
“Mother has run away too,” said Tom. “There’s her letter on the top of the dresser. It was seeing her helping herself out of the stocking as put me up to it. She took some of the money, and she left the key in the drawer, that’s how I come by this jolly find. You read her letter, Bob.”
Bob did so, with his eyes glittering.
“I say,” he exclaimed, “yere is a jolly go. I ha’ got a stuff in my pocket, a kind of new sort of Indy-rubber wot rubs out writing. I say, Tom, let’s put the whole of it on mother.”
“The whole of wot? Wot do yer mean?”
“She says she has took thirty shillings. Let’s rub out them words, and put as she took all that wor in the stocking. Then the perlice won’t be a’ter us, and we can go off to sea without no one a-finding of us out.” Tom reflected over Bob’s words of wisdom, and finally decided that his plan was worth adopting. While Jill still slept, the wicked, clever little fingers erased a portion of Poll’s letter, and added the words instead, “I ’as took all the money you has hoarded away in the old stocking. I know you won’t grudge it.”