“Ta’e ’im up, ta’e ’im up, an’ birch ’im till ’is bloody back’s raw,” she screamed. The thin policeman shook her off, and wanted to know what was the matter. “I’ll smosh ’im like a rotten tater,” cried the woman, “if I can lay ’ands on ’im. ’E’s not fit ter live nowhere where there’s decent folks—the thievin’, brazen little devil——” thus she went on. “But what’s up!” interrupted the thin constable, “what’s up wi’ ’im?” “Up—it’s ’im as ’is up, an’ let ’im wait till I get ’im down. A crafty little——” Sam, seeing her look at him, distorted his honest features, and overheated her wrath, till Lettie and Emily trembled with dismay. The mother’s head appeared at the bedroom window. She slid the sash back, and craned out, vainly trying to look over the gutter below the slates. She was even more dishevelled than usual, and the tears had dried on her pale face. She stretched further out, clinging to the window frame and to the gutter overhead, till I was afraid she would come down with a crash. The men, squatting on their heels against the wall of the ashpit, laughed, saying: “Nab ’im, Poll—can ter see ’m—clawk ’im!” and then the pitiful voice of the woman was heard crying: “Come thy ways down, my duckie, come on—on’y come ter thy mother—they shanna touch thee. Du thy mother’s biddin’, now—Sam—Sam—Sam!” her voice rose higher and higher. “Sammy, Sammy, go to thy mammy,” jeered the wits below. “Shonna ter come, Shonna ter come to thy mother, my duckie—come on, come thy ways down.” Sam looked at the crowd, and at the eaves from under which rose his mother’s voice. He was going to cry. A big gaunt woman, with the family steel comb stuck in her back hair, shouted, “Tha’ mun well bend thy face, tha’ needs ter scraight,” and aided by the woman with the birthmark and the squint, she reviled him. The little scoundrel, in a burst of defiance, picked a piece of mortar from between the slates, and in a second it flew into fragments against the family steel comb. The wearer thereof declared her head was laid open and there was general confusion. The policeman—I don’t know how thin he must have been when he was taken out of his uniform—lost his head, and he too began brandishing his fists, spitting from under his sweep’s-brush moustache as he commanded in tones of authority: “Now then, no more on it—let’s ’a’e thee down here, an’ no more messin’ about!” The boy tried to creep over the ridge of the roof and escape down the other side. Immediately the brats rushed round yelling to the other side of the row, and pieces of red-burnt gravel began to fly over the roof. Sam crouched against the chimney. “Got ’im!” yelled one little devil “Got ’im! Hi—go again!”