"Yes," said the boy, "I know that. I feel very sorry for Bob. He hasn't any mother to go to, you know. He had to wash the blood and dirt off his face as best he could at the town pump; and then wait around the streets until his father came from work. It is pretty hard for a boy to have no place to lay his head."
"Why, do you know Bob Sykes?" asked Tommy.
"Yes," answered the boy, "I've been with him a good deal."
"Queer now," mused Tommy. "I don't remember of ever seeing you around. But now tell me what you would have done if he had provoked you, and insulted you, too?"
"I would have forgiven him," answered the boy.
"Well, I did. There was one spell I just started in and forgave him every day for a week, that was seven times."
"I would have forgiven him seventy times seven."
"That is just what my mother always says. Perhaps you know my mother?"
"She knows me, too," replied the boy.
"That is odd. I didn't think she knew any of the boys Bob knows."