Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/185

An Essay in Equality invader's English nurse came around the corner of the Avenue, waving affectionate farewells to a policeman. When she beheld the boy in velvet she held up her hands and screamed. In a second she had seized him and jerked him viciously on to the sidewalk.

Eaven 'elp us!" she cried, as she gazed on him with despair. She shook him vigorously, after looking to see that no one was in sight, and gathered up his mud-stained things, roundly abusing the owner of the puddle as a pug-nosed brat of a thieving street-arab. The street-arab stood in calm indifference, letting the soft mud ooze up between his toes as he watched the tears gathering in the other boy's eyes. The nurse seized her charge and with a contemptuous sniff at the indifferent child in the puddle led the other boy homeward, asking 'eaven to 'elp 'er each time she looked down at his clothes.

As the boy in velvet was jerked bodily along, he gazed back longingly at the mud-puddle and the ship with three masts. Why 173