“Quite right he was, Tommy, my boy,” said his friend. “It is easy to see that you have not profited as much as you might from the example and teaching of my dear Susy an’ chimney-pot Liz.”
“Chimley-pot,” murmured the boy, correcting him in a low tone. “Vell, you could ’ardly expect,” he added, “that a child of my age should git the profit all at once. I suppose it’s like a bad ease o’ waxination—it ha’n’t took properly yet.”
“Then we must have you re-vaccinated, my boy. But tell me, what were the swells like?”
The description of the swells occupied Tommy all the rest of the walk to Cherub Court, where they found old Liz and Susan in a state of great excitement about the visitors who had just left.
“Why, who d’ye think they was?” exclaimed the old woman, making the fang wobble with a degree of vigour that bid fair to unship it altogether, “it was my dear sweet little boy Jacky—”
“Little boy! Granny!” cried Susan, with a merry laugh.
“Of course, child, I mean what he was and ever will be to me. He’s a tall middle-aged gentleman now, an’ with that nice wife that used to visit us—an’ their sweet daughter—just like what the mother was, exceptin’ those hideous curls tumblin’ about her pretty brow as I detest more than I can tell. An’ she’s goin’ to be married too, young as she is, to a clergyman down in Devonshire, where the family was used to go every summer (alongside o’ their lawyer Mr Lockhart as they was so fond of, though the son as has the business now ain’t like his father); the sweet child—dear, dear, how it do call up old times!”
“And didn’t they,” broke in Tommy, “never say a word about ’elpin’ you, granny, to git hout of your troubles?”
“’Ow could they offer to ’elp me,” returned old Liz sternly, “w’en they knew nothink about my troubles? an’ I’m very glad they didn’t, for it would have spoiled their visit altogether if they’d begun it by offerin’ me assistance. For shame, Tommy. You’re not yet cured o’ greed, my dear.”
“Did I say I was?” replied the urchin, with a hurt look.