At last they came to a door, which in the uncertain light seemed exactly similar to one he had passed through on an occasion he would never forget to his dying day. He began to cry again miserably. Perhaps they would give him something to eat--they did so before--but he would not be able to eat anything this time if they offered it, not until they had done what they had to do. He could hear sounds a little way off ... inside the prison. He gripped convulsively the rough overcoat of his captor. How vividly he remembered it all! They gave it two other boys first. Again he could hear their screams, again he could see the blood running down their bare legs. He must try to be a man ... he remembered that one of the other boys had laughed about it afterwards ... he must try to be a man ... at least that had been the advice of a fatherly policeman in spectacles who had presided over the ceremony.... "Mother ... that you..." The terrific voice of his captor went right through him. "Where are you, Mother? Show a light." Suddenly a door at the end of the passage was flung open. There came a blinding gush of gaslight. "Why, Job ... whatever...!" "I'll set him on the sophy." "Yes, on the sophy. Goodness gracious me!" The boy realized that he was on a horsehair sofa, and that a fine, clean, handsome-looking lady was standing with her mouth open in front of him. "Goodness gracious, Job!" "Come all the way from Blackhampton in a truck this morning. By the 5:40 Express." "Well, I'm blessed if I ever see such a hobject. I'll give him some tea and a bit o' bacon, and some bread and butter, and then I'll get some o' that mud off him." "Some of it's blood," said the Foreman Shunter. "Yes, I see it is. Never ... did ... I ... see ... anythink ... like him. I'll make the tea; the kettle's boiling." The voice of Mother was the nearest thing to music the boy had ever heard. It was better even than that of the ladies who sang in the bar of the Wheat Sheaf, the Red Lion, and the Crown and Anchor, outside which places he had always stayed to listen when he could conveniently do so. This room was not in the least like the police station. And he was quite sure that the lady called Mother had nothing whatever to do with.... "Set him a bit nearer to the fire, Job,"--yes, the voice was music--"and put this round him." "This" was an old coat. VI "I'll give it him in a saucer," said Mother. "It'll be cooler that way." A saucer of tea was offered to the boy. "Can you hold it, me lad?" "Yes, lady," he said, faintly. "Lap it up, then. Better let me try it first." She sipped a little out of the saucer. "Yes, that's right enough." The tea was so perfectly delicious that he swallowed it at a gulp. Mother and the Foreman Shunter watched him with surprise. "Now for a bite o' bread and butter," said Mother, sawing away at a quartern loaf.