“You little liar!” shouted the baker. “Didn’t I see him with his hand on the loaf?” “He was a puttin’ of it back,” said Tommy. “I wish he’d been somewheres else! See what he been an’ got by it! If he’d only ha’ let me run, there wouldn’t ha’ been nobody the wiser. I _am_ sorry I didn’t run. Oh, I _ham_ so ’ungry!” Tommy doubled himself up, with his hands inside the double. “’Ungry, are you?” roared the baker. “That’s what thieves off a baker’s cart ought to be! They ought to be always ’ungry--’ungry to all eternity, they ought! An’ that’s what’s goin’ to be done to ’em!” “Look here!” cried a pale-faced man in the front of the crowd, who seemed a mechanic. “There’s a way of tellin’ whether the boy’s speakin’ the truth _now_!” He caught up the restored loaf, halved it cleverly, and handed each of the boys a part. “Now, baker, what’s to pay?” he said, and drew himself up, for the man was too angry at once to reply. The boys were tearing at the delicious bread, blind and deaf to all about them. “P’r’aps you would like to give _me_ in charge?” pursued their saviour. “Sixpence,” said the man sullenly. The mechanic laid sixpence on the cover of the cart. “I ought to ha’ made you weigh and make up,” he said. “Where’s your scales?” “Mind your own business.” “I mean to. Here! I want another sixpenny loaf--but I want it weighed this time!” “I ain’t bound to sell bread in the streets. You can go to the shop. Them loaves is for reg’lar customers.” He moved off with his cart, and the crowd began to disperse. The boys stood absorbed, each in what remained of his half-loaf. When he looked up, Clare saw that they were alone. But he caught sight of their benefactor some way off, and ran after him. “Oh, sir!” he said, “I was so hungry, I don’t know whether I thanked you for the loaf. We’d had nothing to-day but the sweepings of a mill.” “God bless my soul!” said the man. “People say there’s a God!” he added. “I think there must be, sir, for you came by just then!” returned Clare. “How do you come to be so hard-up, my boy? Somebody’s to blame somewheres!” “There ain’t no harm in being hungry, so long as the loaf comes!” rejoined Clare. “When I get work we shall be all right!” “That’s your sort!” said the man. “But if there had been a God, as people say, he would ha’ made me fit to gi’e you a job, i’stead o’ stan’in’ here as you see me, with ne’er a turn o’ work to do for myself!” “I’ll work my hardest to pay you back your sixpence,” said Clare. “Nay, nay, lad! Don’t you trouble about that. I ha’ got two or three more i’ my pocket, thank God!” “You have two Gods, have you, sir?” said Clare; “--one who does things for you, and one who don’t?” “Come, you young shaver! you’re too much for me!” said the man laughing. Tommy, having finished his bread, here thought fit to join them. He came slyly up, looking impudent now he was filled, with his hands where his pockets should have been.