"Still, there's the chance of meeting somebody there who will
understand--"

"Country people are better," the boy interrupted. "Last night I took
a lease of a barn for nothing and slept with the cows, and this
morning the farmer routed me out and gave me tea and toke because I
was so little. Of course, I score there; but in London, soup on the
Embankment at night, and all the rest of the time coppers moving you
on." "I dropped by the roadside last night and slept where I fell. It's a
wonder I didn't die," the tramp said. The boy looked at him sharply. "How did you know you didn't?" he said. "I don't see it," the tramp said, after a pause. "I tell you," the boy said hoarsely, "people like us can't get away
from this sort of thing if we want to. Always hungry and thirsty and
dog-tired and walking all the while. And yet if anyone offers me a
nice home and work my stomach feels sick. Do I look strong? I know
I'm little for my age, but I've been knocking about like this for six
years, and do you think I'm not dead? I was drowned bathing at
Margate, and I was killed by a gypsy with a spike; he knocked my head
and yet I'm walking along here now, walking to London to walk away
from it again, because I can't help it. Dead! I tell you we can't get
away if we want to." The boy broke off in a fit of coughing, and the tramp paused while he
recovered. "You'd better borrow my coat for a bit, Tommy," he said, "your
cough's pretty bad." "You go to hell!" the boy said fiercely, puffing at his cigarette;
"I'm all right. I was telling you about the road. You haven't got
down to it yet, but you'll find out presently. We're all dead, all of
us who're on it, and we're all tired, yet somehow we can't leave it. There's nice smells in the summer, dust and hay and the wind smack in
your face on a hot day--and it's nice waking up in the wet grass on a
fine morning. I don't know, I don't know--" he lurched forward
suddenly, and the tramp caught him in his arms. "I'm sick," the boy whispered--"sick." The tramp looked up and down the road, but he could see no houses or
any sign of help. Yet even as he supported the boy doubtfully in the
middle of the road a motor car suddenly flashed in the middle
distance, and came smoothly through the snow. "What's the trouble?" said the driver quietly as he pulled up. "I'm a
doctor." He looked at the boy keenly and listened to his strained
breathing. "Pneumonia," he commented. "I'll give him a lift to the infirmary,
and you, too, if you like." The tramp thought of the workhouse and shook his head "I'd rather
walk," he said. The boy winked faintly as they lifted him into the car. "I'll meet you beyond Reigate," he murmured to the tramp. "You'll
see." And the car vanished along the white road. All the morning the tramp splashed through the thawing snow, but at
midday he begged some bread at a cottage door and crept into a lonely
barn to eat it. It was warm in there, and after his meal he fell
asleep among the hay. It was dark when he woke, and started trudging
once more through the slushy roads. Two miles beyond Reigate a figure, a fragile figure, slipped out of
the darkness to meet him. "On the road, guv'nor?" said a husky voice. "Then I'll come a bit of
the way with you if you don't walk too fast. It's a bit lonesome
walking this time of day." "But the pneumonia!" cried the tramp, aghast. "I died at Crawley this morning," said the boy. A Tragedy In Little

                                  I

Jack, the postmaster's little son, stood in the bow-window of the
parlour and watched his mother watering the nasturtiums in the front
garden. A certain intensity of purpose was expressed by the manner in
which she handled the water-pot. For though it was a fine afternoon
the carrier's man had called over the hedge to say that there would
be a thunderstorm during the night, and every one knew that he never
made a mistake about the weather. Nevertheless, Jack's mother watered
the plants as if he had not spoken, for it seemed to her that this
meteorological gift smacked a little of sorcery and black magic; but
in spite of herself she felt sure that there would be a thunderstorm
and that her labour was therefore vain, save perhaps as a protest
against idle superstition. It was in the same spirit that she carried
an umbrella on the brightest summer day. Jack had been sent indoors because he would get his legs in the way
of the watering-pot in order to cool them, so now he had to be
content to look on, with his nose pressed so tightly against the
pane that from outside it looked like the base of a sea-anemone
growing in a glass tank. He could no longer hear the glad chuckle
of the watering-pot when the water ran out, but, on the other hand,
he could write his name on the window with his tongue, which he
could not have done if he had been in the garden. Also he had some
sweets in his pocket, bought with a halfpenny stolen from his own
money-box, and as the window did not taste very nice he slipped one
into his mouth and sucked it with enjoyment. He did not like being
in the parlour, because he had to sit there with his best clothes on
every Sunday afternoon and read the parish magazine to his sleepy
parents. But the front window was lovely, like a picture, and,
indeed, he thought that his mother, with the flowers all about her
and the red sky overhead, was like a lady on one of the beautiful
calendars that the grocer gave away at Christmas. He finished his
sweet and started another; he always meant to suck them right
through to make them last longer, but when the sweet was half
finished he invariably crunched it up. His father had done the same
thing as a boy. The room behind him was getting dark, but outside the sky seemed to
be growing lighter, and mother still stooped from bed to bed, moving
placidly, like a cow. Sometimes she put the watering-pot down on the
gravel path, and bent to uproot a microscopic weed or to pull the
head off a dead flower. Sometimes she went to the well to get some
more water, and then Jack was sorry that he had been shut indoors,
for he liked letting the pail down with a run and hearing it bump
against the brick sides. Once he tapped upon the window for
permission to come out, but mother shook her head vigorously without
turning round; and yet his stockings were hardly wet at all. Suddenly mother straightened herself, and Jack looked up and saw his
father leaning over the gate. He seemed to be making grimaces, and
Jack made haste to laugh aloud in the empty room, because he knew
that he was good at seeing his father's jokes. Indeed it was a funny
thing that father should come home early from work and make faces at
mother from the road. Mother, too, was willing to join in the fun,
for she knelt down among the wet flowers, and as her head drooped
lower and lower it looked, for one ecstatic moment, as though she
were going to turn head over heels.