Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/96

 square muscularity of face, and of age about thirty-five. He had ventured into the Jago because the police were in possession, Dicky thought; and wondered in what plight he would leave had he come at another time. But losing view of the stranger and making his way along Old Jago Street, Dicky perceived that indeed the police were gone, and that the Jago was free.

He climbed the broken stairs and pushed into the first floor back, hopeful, though more doubtful, of dinner. There was none. His mother, tied about the neck with rags, lay across the bed, nursing the damage of yesterday, and commiserating herself. A yard from her lay Looey, sick and ailing in a new way, but disregarded. Dicky moved to lift her but at that she cried the more, and he was fain to let her lie. She rolled her head from side to side and raised her thin little hand vaguely toward it, with feverishly-working fingers.