Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/139

The International the trial game next Saturday, and I remembered my first match. It is one of the few perfect memories of my life, and when I watched this little chap kicking his absurd salmon tin up and down, it seemed heartrending to think that perhaps for want of a little care, a fine full-back was being lost to the county."

"What?" said I in amazement.

"Yes," Georgie went on gravely, "and to the country too, perhaps. I've never heard of an international coming out of the workhouse. Have you?"

"The workhouse?" Drusilla glanced with troubled eyes at poor Taffy, now fast asleep and no longer fierce.

"Yes," Georgie said slowly. "Skilly would weaken a chap's kick, don't you think? His mother's dead. So is his father; fell off his boat drunk. This chap's been living with an aunt ever since."

"Where is the aunt now?" I asked sternly.

Georgie ruffled the little boy's black hair. 123