Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/270

 till they took him and carried him off and reformed him

“He was cruel to the hens and chickings, it’s true, and stuck a knife into another boy, but then I’ve seen him that nice to a cat, nobody could have been kinder. I’m sure he didn’t do no ’arm to that cat whatever anyone tries to make out of it. I’d never listen to that It was that reformatory ruined him. They put him along of a lot of London boys full of ideas of wickedness, and because he didn’t mind pain—and he don’t, I will admit, try as I would—they made him think himself a hero. Them boys laughed at the teachers they set over them, laughed and mocked at them—and I don’t suppose they was the best teachers in the world; I don’t suppose, and I don’t suppose anyone sensible does suppose that everyone who goes to be a teacher or a chapl’in or a warder in a Reformatory Home goes and changes right away into an Angel of Grace from Heaven—and Oh, Lord! where was I?”

“What did they send him to the Reformatory for?”

“Playing truant and stealing. He stole right enough—stole the money from an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial but say what I knew. And him like a viper a-looking at me—more like a viper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. ’All right, Aunt Flo,’ he says, just that and nothing more. Time after time, I’ve dreamt of it, and now he’s come. ‘They’ve Reformed me,’ he says, ’and made me