Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/323

 sister. Lack of victuals shook his nerve and made him timid. Moreover, his terror grew greater than ever at the prospect of being caught in a theft. He lay awake at night and sweated to think of it. Who would bring in things from the outer world for mother and Em then? And the danger was worse than ever. He had felt the police-court birch, and it was bad, very bad. But he would take it every day, and take it almost without a tear, rather than the chance of a reformatory. Magistrates were unwilling to send boys to reformatories while both father and mother were at hand to control them, for that were relieving the parents of their natural responsibility; but in a case like Dicky's, a "schooling" was a very likely thing. So that Dicky, as he prowled, was torn between implacable need and the fear of being cut off from all chances of supplying it.

It was his rule never to come home without bringing something, were it no