“Tha 'rt jealous o' Susan's legs,” barked out a sharp voice from a corner by the fire. The room had a flagged floor, clean with recent scrubbing with sandstone; the whitewashed walls were decorated with pictures cut from illustrated papers; there was a big fireplace, and by it was a hard-looking sofa covered with blue-and-white checked cotton stuff. A boy of about ten was lying on it, propped up with a pillow. He had a big head and a keen, ferret-eyed face, and just now was looking round the end of his sofa at the visitors. “Howd tha tongue, Tummas!” said his mother. “I wunnot howd it,” Tummas answered. “Ma tongue's th' on'y thing about me as works right, an' I'm noan goin' to stop it.” “He's a young nowt,” his mother explained; “but, he's a cripple, an' we conna do owt wi' him.” “Do not be rude, Thomas,” said Miss Alicia, with dignity. “Dunnot be rude thysen,” replied Tummas. “I'm noan o' thy lad.” Tembarom walked over to the sofa. “Say,” he began with jocular intent, “you've got a grouch on, ain't you?” Tummas turned on him eyes which bored. An analytical observer or a painter might have seen that he had a burning curiousness of look, a sort of investigatory fever of expression. “I dunnot know what tha means,” he said. “Happen tha'rt talkin' 'Merican?” “That's just what it is,” admitted Tembarom. “What are you talking?” “Lancashire,” said Tummas. “Theer's some sense i' that.” Tembarom sat down near him. The boy turned over against his pillow and put his chin in the hollow of his palm and stared. “I've wanted to see thee,” he remarked. “I've made mother an' Aunt Susan an' feyther tell me every bit they've heared about thee in the village. Theer was a lot of it. Tha coom fro' 'Meriker?” “Yes.” Tembarom began vaguely to feel the demand in the burning curiosity. “Gi' me that theer book,” the boy said, pointing to a small table heaped with a miscellaneous jumble of things and standing not far from him. “It's a' atlas,” he added as Tembarom gave it to him. “Yo' con find places in it.” He turned the leaves until he found a map of the world. “Theer's 'Meriker,” he said, pointing to the United States. “That theer's north and that theer's south. All th' real 'Merikens comes from the North, wheer New York is.” “I come from New York,” said Tembarom. “Tha wert born i' th' workhouse, tha run about th' streets i' rags, tha pretty nigh clemmed to death, tha blacked boots, tha sold newspapers, tha feyther was a common workin'-mon--and now tha's coom into Temple Barholm an' sixty thousand a year.” “The last part's true all right,” Tembarom owned, “but there's some mistakes in the first part. I wasn't born in the workhouse, and though I've been hungry enough, I never starved to death--if that's what `clemmed' means.” Tummas looked at once disappointed and somewhat incredulous. “That's th' road they tell it i' th' village,” he argued.