"Funny!" she pondered. "One Jew-boy pushes me out and I takes another Jew-boy in! All right, Arthur! Nothing's going to happen. You're still my own Arthur! Don't get frightened. But if you won't have bacon, you can only have sardines. I wasn't expecting no visitors to-night." "Anything!" he murmured weakly. He ate greedily. She took the food away when he had finished and sat by the bedside, looking into his face. She held his hand between her own soft hands. In two moments he was asleep. When he awoke next morning amid the clank of trams and the calling of boys, he found himself embraced by two great white arms. With a sudden shudder of realization, the events of yesterday and last night came back to him. The lady who had been so kind had gone into bed after him. It was rather stifling in the bed, he didn't like it! He didn't like lying in the arms of a strange lady. A qualm of dislike passed over him. As gently as possible, so as not to waken her, he slipped from her arms and from the bed and started to dress. Her face was distinctly unpleasant in the cold morning light. It was heavy and layers of fat swelled all round it. She had been crying, for the marks of tears ran dirtily down the bleared crimson of her cheeks. Her hair lay about lankly on the pillow. Yet there was something unutterably pathetic about her expression. How could he show her his gratitude? Where would he have been without her? "It's all right, Arthur," he heard her say. "I know you're getting up. It's all right, just keep on dressing!" She did not open her eyes. "I want to thank you very much!" he said lamely. "No, kid, I want to thank you. I've never had it before. I don't suppose it'll ever come again. If ever you tells your mother about it, just say as Bertha thanks her. She's a mother and she'll understand maybe. So long, kiddie, so long!" He was fully dressed. He made a movement in her direction. "No, kid. Don't shake my hand. Don't touch me. Before you have anything to do with Bertha again, just walk into the river without looking where you're going. Go away, for God's sake, go away! You'll find the front door open! Go back home! Your mother wants you!" Her unwieldy body turned round on the bed and the great face was buried in the pillow. He stole from the room, down the stairs, and through the front door. The door closed behind him and he saw a milk cart drive by cheerily. Suddenly the figure of the strange kind lady became terrible and sad and very remote. He turned away from her house. Mechanically he set his face in the direction of home. CHAPTER VIII