“Vell, mother, ’ow are ye? Hallo! Hetty! w’y, wot a shadder you’ve become! Oh! I say, them nusses at the hospital must ’ave stole all your flesh an’ blood from you, for they’ve left nothin’ but the bones and skin.”
He went up to his sister, put an arm round her neck, and kissed her. This was a very unusual display of affection. It was the first time Bobby had volunteered an embrace, though he had often submitted to one with dignified complacency, and Hetty, being weak, burst into tears.
“Hallo! I say, stop that now, young gal,” he said, with a look of alarm, “I’m always took bad ven I see that sort o’ thing, I can’t stand it.”
By way of mending matters the poor girl, endeavouring to be agreeable, gave a hysterical laugh.
“Come, that’s better, though it ain’t much to boast of,”—and he kissed her again.
Finding that, although for the present they were supplied with a small amount of food, Hetty had no employment and his mother no money, our city Arab said that he would undertake to sustain the family.
“But oh! Bobby, dear, don’t steal again.”
“No, Hetty, I won’t, I’ll vork. I didn’t go for to do it a-purpose, but I was overtook some’ow—I seed the umbrellar standin’ handy, you know, and—etceterer. But I’m sorry I did it, an’ I won’t do it again.”
Swelling with great intentions, Robert Frog thrust his dirty little hands into his trouser pockets—at least into the holes that once contained them—and went out whistling.
Soon he came to a large warehouse, where a portly gentleman stood at the door. Planting himself in front of this man, and ceasing to whistle in order that he might speak, he said:—