Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/129

 and tripping, he turned one last corner and almost fell against a vast, fat, unkempt woman whose clothes slid from her shoulders.

"'Ere y' are boy," said the woman, and flung him by the shoulder through the doorway before which she stood.

He was saved at his extremity, for he could never have reached the street's end. The woman who had done it (probably she had boys of her own on the crook) filled the entrance with her frowsy bulk, and the chase straggled past. Dicky caught the stair-post for a moment's support, and then staggered out at the back of the house. He gasped, he panted, things danced blue before him, but still he clutched his jacket hem and the music-box lying within. The back door gave on a cobble-paved court, with other doors, two coster's barrows and a few dusty fowls. Dicky sat on a step where a door was shut and rested his head against the frame.