Just before Cornfield Road reaches the sea he exchanged the horse-bus for the electric tram that swung him down Pevensey Road through the thronged and always thickening East-end. At the _Barbary Corsair_ in Sea-gate he descended, turned down a side-street, and entered a door over which hung the three golden balls taken from the coat-of-arms of the banker Medici. Mr. Goldmann was a short, fair Jew, without a neck, immensely thick throughout, though still under thirty. When he walked he carried his arms away from his side as though to aid him to inflate; and winter or summer he could be found behind his counter, perspiring freely. His trousers were always too short, and his little legs protruded from them like pillars. He spoke Cockney without a trace of Yiddish. His manner was hearty; but he was honest of his kind. The police had nothing against him, while his innumerable clients complained less of him than of his rivals. Ern in the past had dealt with him. "How much?" he asked, presenting the ticket. "Only two-pence," said Goldmann, and took the watch out of the case. He handled it with care, almost covetously, burnishing it on his sleeve. "What arms is them?" he asked, displaying the back. Ernie didn't know. "If it had been any man but your father left it, I'd have communicated with the police," said the pawn-broker cheerfully. "Will you do it up in a piece of paper, please?" Ern requested. The Jew obeyed. "Lend me your stylo alf a mo," said Ernie, and wrote on the paper covering the word _Dad_. Then he raced home and re-entered the kitchen. It was after ten, but his mother was still up, and apparently unconscious of the lateness of the hour. Ern, panting from the speed at which he had travelled, paid nine shillings and four pence into his mother's lap. Tram and bus had cost him sixpence, and the redemption money the rest. "Eightpence all told," he gasped, "what I wanted. Only a little something for dad. I'll send you the odd money when I draw me first pay." He put the little packet on the mantel-piece. "Will you give that to dad, please, when I'm gone, mum?" His mother looked at him, a rare sweetness in her eyes. "You may keep the change, Ern," she said gently. Collecting the money from her lap, she handed it back to him. A moment he demurred, taken aback; then slipped the cash into his trouser pocket, mumbling and deeply moved. "Thank you kindly, mum," he muttered. Her eyes were still on his face, and he could not meet them. "You're a good lad, Ern," she said quietly. The words, and the way of saying them, moved the lad more than all her rebuffs and brutalities in the past had done. His chest began to heave. She stood before him stiff as a blade of steel, as slight and straight. For a second she laid her hand, fine still for all its toil, upon his arm. "Go up to bed now," she said in the same very quiet way. He went hurriedly.