Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/67

The King who Lost His Crown They fawned over him, and showed him how to play craps, though not for keeps. And as for Tommie, he was drunk with the consciousness of his strange new power. He walked with a sort of lordly independence among the children of the Street, for he saw he was already established in the position he felt he ought to occupy. He blushingly remembered that he had bawled for a day when the moving was first begun, but now he was a king. And he had not had to fight one single fight!

In fact, little gifts were urged upon Tommie, which he took with assumed reluctance, and tiny girls made hungry and melting eyes at him after feasting, in fancy, before that ever-alluring window. This was especially so in the case of Maggie Reilly, whose affairs of the heart had been both numerous and noted.

Often Tommie would come out of the shop smacking his lips with great relish, and say that he could still taste that last chocolate mouse. Day by day, too, he recounted the amount of taffy and chocolate mice his 55