Once or twice the boy's parents came to see him, young, wealthy people, against whom Harry formed a possibly unwarrantable prejudice; and on these occasions, before being sent downstairs to see them, the child was first taken upstairs and his light hair made lank and rank with pomatum, and his pale face burnished with much soap. While he was ill, however, the Woodmans ran down from their hotel in town one Sunday morning and spent an hour in the sick-room before hurrying back. Harry was present when Mrs. Bickersteth came in from chapel and heard of it. He followed the irate lady upstairs (to put away his Sunday hat), and he heard her tell the invalid what she thought of his father for coming up into her bedrooms in her absence. Gentlemen in her bedrooms she did not allow; it was a most ungentlemanly liberty to take; and so on and so on, until Harry saw such tears in the boy's eyes as Scrafton himself could not have wrung. A new book was lying on the bed when Harry quitted this painful scene. He saw it next under Mrs. Bickersteth's arm; and he had to go upstairs again to say a word to the boy, though it should cost him his beggarly place fifty times over. "I don't mind what they say to me," whimpered Woodman. "I only mind what they say about my people." Harry found it possible to take the other side without unkindness. Mrs. Bickersteth had said more than she meant. Most people did when they were angry. Ladies were always sensitive about untidiness, and, of course, the room was untidy. She had not meant to hurt Woodman's feelings. "But my mater brought me a new Ballantyne, sir," said the boy. "It was the one that's just come out, and Bick--Mrs. Bickersteth--has taken it away from me." His tears ran again. "Well, I'll lend you something instead," said Harry. "Thanks awfully, sir." "I'll lend you anything you like!" quoth Harry recklessly. He was thinking of some novels in the locked drawer. "Honest Injun, sir?" Harry laughed. The boy had a quaint way with him that never went too far, he was the one fellow with whom it was quite safe to joke, and it was delightful to see his dark eyes drying beneath the bright look that only left them when Woodman was really miserable. "Honest Injun, Woodman." "Then lend me a _Tiddler_." "A what?" "A _Tommy Tiddler_, sir," said Woodman demurely. "How on earth do you know I have one?" cried Harry aghast. "Everybody knows you get it every Saturday from the station, sir." "But how?" "Oh, I don't know," said Woodman. "But--but I do wish you'd show me what you write in it, sir. I swear I won't tell the other fellows!" Harry was temporarily dumb. Then he burst out in an excited whisper: how in the wide world did they know he wrote for the thing? Woodman would not say. A lot of them did know it, but they had agreed not to sneak--for which observation he apologised in the same breath. Woodman whispered too; never were two such conspirators.