AFTER the Polderry picnic the relations between Tommy and his ladies were distinctly strained. In many little ways they worked for his regeneration and tried to bring home to him the enormity of his offences.

On the following day, which was Sunday, he himself showed tact in avoiding the upstairs sitting-room. Mammy brought up the letters and whenever the ladies approached the kitchen they found Tommy fully and unobtrusively occupied with urgent affairs in the corner farthest from the door.

On Monday morning when he was running along the quay from school, his quick eye saw a halfpenny lying in the dust near some drying tackle. This was unprecedented good fortune. It was the first money that Tommy had ever found. After picking it up he looked round for possible claimants, but as none appeared he put it in his pocket and pursued his homeward way.

He found only Mammy indoors. She was very busy just then, and although she was moderately enthusiastic over his find, he felt the need of wider sympathy and ran out into the alley on the off-chance of meeting with Jimmy Prynne.

Jimmy Prynne was not in sight, but coming up from the sea were his ladies. They carried travelling-rugs and books, and were laughing together as they walked. Tommy had always taken them into his confidence at once no matter whether it was in joy or sorrow. To-day he felt an unaccountable diffidence in approaching them.

Somewhat hesitatingly he drew near and their laughter at once ceased. “Found this!” and he held his dusty halfpenny up to view.

Miss Dorothea said nothing, Miss Margaret merely remarked “Oh,” and passed on.

Quite obviously they had not seen his treasure. “’Tis a ’a’penny,” he insisted. “I found ’e on the quay all in a ’eap o’ dust.”

Miss Dorothea passed into the house. Miss Margaret smiled politely, and “Oh,” she said once more.

Tommy was sick at heart. It was as though the very foundations of his world were giving way.

In the matter of finds he seemed to have struck a run of luck, for on Tuesday he came home with a knife picked up on the shingle near the Frying Pan steps. It was an ivory-handled knife and had four blades of different sizes; they were all rusty and all broken.

“I’ll give ee my knife, Daddy,” said Tommy, at tea-time, pushing it across the table.

“Mustn’t do that, must never give nothin’ as cuts.”

“Why?” asked Tommy.

“’Twill cut love. If so be as I took that knife I shouldn’t love ee any more. ’Tis all right if ’e do be bought, so here be a ’a’penny for ee.”

Daddy thrust the knife into his deep, trouser pocket, and Tommy put the halfpenny into his.

Tommy felt that his ladies would surely be interested in this day’s event. There was not only the thrilling incident of the finding of the knife, but there was the subsequent financial transaction with Daddy, and a second halfpenny in his trouser pocket to-day. He poured out his story to them as they were mounting the stairs. To his amazement it left them cold.

When next they passed the kitchen door he entreated his Daddy to show the knife to them, and Tregennis displayed the four broken blades from which he had removed the rust with bits of cinder.

“You will find that most useful, Tregennis,” said Miss Margaret. To Tommy she spoke not at all.

In the doorway she relaxed just a little. “You have really been quite lucky, Tommy,” she remarked, and went with Miss Dorothea down to the sea.

Later the ladies had occasion to buy stamps. Coming from the post-office they saw Tommy sitting on the quay-wall, knocking off bits of mortar with his heels.

“Our one-time friend!” laughed Miss Dorothea, but Miss Margaret looked straight ahead.

When Tommy saw them he slipped from the wall and ran behind them whistling and singing to attract attention. As this proved a dull and ineffectual game he dodged in front kicking an old salmon tin before him as he ran. By the Three Jolly Tars Teddy Falconer was playing. When he saw Tommy he hastily picked up his ball and shrank into the doorway of the inn. Now Tommy would have been distinctly glad for this incident to pass unobserved, but it was at this moment, unluckily, that Miss Margaret became aware of him.

“Why does Teddy look so frightened?” she asked.

“’Tother day I did kick his ball for ’e, and ...” with a dramatic gesture towards the shrinking Teddy, “’e did run into his house to tell his Mammy.”

The look that Miss Margaret gave Tommy showed him that his position was in no wise strengthened. He fell behind and walked home dejectedly to tea.

At half-past six that evening, when the water was high, there was to be a launch, Tregennis said. Miss Dorothea was tired, so Miss Margaret went alone to see the new lugger take the water. She missed the launch because it was all over half-an-hour before she got there, but she found instead, playing on the quay, Mary Sarah and Katie, and the whole Stevenson family.

Of course the Stevensons were there, Mary Sarah explained, for they were the O’Grady’s cousins. Mary Sarah was as much as five, and in virtue of her age she took the lead. Mary Sarah enlightened the others as to the identity of the Lady, and vouched for her respectability, so to speak. The Lady had often spoken to her, she told them with an air of superiority, and she had often spoken to the Lady when the Lady was sittin’ writin’ up on the top o’ the cliffs.

When the conversation dragged a reference was made to sweets, and the whole party repaired to Mrs. Tregennis’s house.

“Mrs. Tregennis,” called out Miss Margaret, “here’s Mary Sarah O’Grady, and Katie O’Grady, and their cousins the Stevensons and me. We’ve all come here for sweets. Have you any to give away?”

There was a blank moment when Mrs. Tregennis announced that she hadn’t got no not one.

Tommy, who was in the kitchen at the time, was delighted to think that sweets were not forthcoming for Mary Sarah and Katie, and the whole family of Stevensons.

Then Miss Margaret brightened up. “I remember!” she said, and ran upstairs two steps at a time.

When she returned she had in her hand a good-sized paper bag which she gave to Mary Sarah.

“Now Mary Sarah,” she admonished; “you share them out, turn and turn about. Be quite fair. They’re such pretty children,” she remarked to Mrs. Tregennis.

“They did oughter be,” was the reply, “for they be Irish to the very finger-tips.”

Miss Margaret again turned to the group of children. “What have you got, Katie?” and Katie withdrew from her mouth a big bull’s-eye.

With bulging cheek, and somewhat inarticulately, Mary Sarah spoke. “Her do have a shocking bad cold,” she said with the wisdom of three times five; “they mints will be brave an’ good for she.”

This incident made a deep impression upon Tommy. So far the ladies had been his own special property; he had shared them quite occasionally with Ruthie, but with her alone. That Mary Sarah and Katie and the Stevensons should adopt them was by no means in accordance with his wishes. Something must be done, and that something clearly must be the strengthening of his own moral character.

Weeks before Miss Margaret had initiated Tommy into the mysteries of an early morning rite. You first of all clasped hands (right hands it had to be, Tommy’s left was always rejected), and then you said “Good morning,” and smiled, and after that you shook the hands up and down and jumped once to each shake. Both shaking and jumping got quicker and quicker, and at last ended with an abrupt stop, and your arms fell stiffly to your sides.

To Tommy this ceremony had become an integral part of the morning. It was strange, too, how only Miss Margaret knew the proper way. When Miss Dorothea tried to shake hands with him once he found that she had absolutely no knowledge of the right method of procedure and he had been obliged to tell her so.

For three mornings now the ceremony had been neglected. On the Wednesday Tommy determined that it must no longer be omitted, and when he saw Miss Margaret he held out his hand and smiled. Miss Margaret smiled too, took his hand in hers, shook it just once, said “Good morning,” then turned to Mrs. Tregennis and gave orders for the day.

“Why wouldn’t Miss Margaret shake hands with me proper?” he asked afterwards.

“Don’t ee know?” Mammy replied, “I guess I know. You think, my son.”

So Tommy thought.

There was great excitement in Draeth the next day, for a big Conservative tea-meeting had been arranged for the afternoon, and The Member was to be present.

At one end of the tea-table Mrs. Tregennis presided. She was accompanied by Tommy in the dandy-go-risset sailor suit, and by Tregennis. Tregennis felt very stiff and uncomfortable, for as this was such an important occasion Mrs. Tregennis had decided that he must discard the fisherman’s jersey in favour of his wedding suit. In all the eight years he had been married this suit had not been worn above a dozen times, for, as he declared to Miss Margaret, “It has to be some fine weather, Miss, when I puts on they.”

This afternoon the wedding suit was worn, and Tregennis, Mrs. Tregennis and Tommy sat down to tea with their fellow-Conservatives and with all the quality of Draeth. An excellent tea was provided at sixpence a head; The Member made a few remarks on the political outlook which were well received, and the meeting broke up amid general congratulations. As Mrs. Tregennis explained afterwards to the ladies she herself was not a Conservative, in fact, her father was a Liberal, so if it came to a question of family she was a Liberal too. She knew naught of it, but always hoped that the best man would get in, politics or no politics. Tommy, she supposed, would be brought up as a Conservative and follow in his father’s steps.

“But that is too dreadful to contemplate,” exclaimed Miss Margaret. “Tommy, come here.”

This was a tone of voice Tommy had not heard for five days. He came with alacrity.

Miss Margaret held out a bottle of boiled sweets that were just the very best kind he liked; hard and scrunchy they were on the outside, soft and sticky within.

“These,” said Miss Margaret, “are Liberal sweets. Each time you eat one you must say, ‘I’m a good Liberal.’”

Tommy grinned.

“That do be bribery and corruption,” objected Tregennis.

“Never mind,” Miss Margaret replied. “Now, Tommy, what are you to say?”

Tommy had taken two sweets at the same time and there was a bulge in each cheek. In reply to Miss Margaret’s question he bit first on the right side of his mouth, and “I be a brave good Liberal,” he asserted. Then he bit on the left side and the formula was repeated.

Afterwards, “I don’t care which I be, ’servative or Liberal,” he affirmed, “but I do like they sweets better’n either.”

The next morning Miss Margaret shook hands with him in quite the proper manner. They jumped quite thirteen times and the ending was exceptionally sudden and abrupt. While Miss Margaret stood stiffly in front of him Tommy made a little dash forward and threw his arms around her. She stooped and kissed him and Tommy went off happily to school.

So big was the bottle of Liberal sweets that even on Saturday there were still some left. Just before tea Tommy asked many times that Mammy would get these from the cupboard and let him eat them then.

“Not before tea, ma handsome; not till ee do go to bed.”

“Wants they now to wanst, please Mammy,” Tommy stated.

“Not till ee do go to bed, I tell ee.”

“Gimme one of they Liberal sweets now.”

“Tommy,” it was Miss Margaret’s voice. “Tommy, I want to give you a box of chocolates to-morrow, but if you ask once more to-day for the bottle of sweets, I shall keep the chocolates for myself.”

“There, you hear,” said Mammy, “an’ you do know now, Tommy, that what Miss Margaret says that she do mean.”

Tommy nodded a little shamefacedly. “Yes, I know,” he assented; “I remember.”

When Tommy came in from play two hours later he walked up to the kitchen cupboard.

“Mammy,” he demanded eagerly, holding up his hands to the shelf out of reach, “Mammy, I tell ee, do give I one o’ they Lib....”

Then came recollection. “Oh,” he said, “I had a’most forgot.”

His outstretched hands dropped to his sides, he clutched the stuff of his trousers to keep the restless fingers still, and with very tightly closed lips turned his back on the cupboard and the kitchen, and walked upstairs to bed.

Thus it was that Tommy took the first conscious and determined step towards the improvement of his moral character.