Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/94

 He hung about the doors and windows of shop after shop, hoping for a temporary absence of the shopkeeper which might leave something snatchable, but he hoped in vain. From most shops he was driven away, for the Shoreditch trader is not slow to judge the purpose of a loitering boy. So he passed nearly two hours; when at last he saw his chance. It came in an advantageous part of High Street, not far from the "Posties," though on the opposite side of the way. A nurse-girl had left a perambulator at a shop door while she bought inside, and on the perambulator lay loose a little skin rug, from which a little fat leg stuck and waved aloft. Dicky set his back to the shop and sidled to within reach of the perambulator. But it chanced that at this moment the nurse-girl stepped to the door, and she made a snatch at his arm as he lifted the rug. This he dropped at once, and was swinging leisurely away (for he despised the chase of any